LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


or  F 


Y.M.C.(A,QF  U.Q. 

^Accession     j  ()4764  Class  ...j-J.s5L.2f. 


GAIL    HAMILTON'S    WRITINGS. 


SUMMER  REST.     One  volume. 
SKIRMISHES   AND    SKETCHES.    One  volume. 
A   NEW  ATMOSPHERE.    One  volume. 
STUMBLING-BLOCKS.    One  volume. 
GALA-DAYS.     One  volume. 

COUNTRY  LIVING  AND  COUNTRY  THINKING. 

One  volume. 


The  above  arc  published  in  uniform  style,  by 

TICKNOR    AND    FIELDS. 


SUMMER  REST 


BY 


GAIL    HAMILTON, 

AUTHOR  OF   "  COUNTRY   LIVING   AND  COUNTRY   THINKING, 

"A    NEW   ATMOSPHERE,"    "GALA-DAYS," 

ETC,   ETC. 


BOSTON: 

TICKNOR    AND    FIELDS 

1866. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1866,  by 

TICKNOR    AND    FIELDS, 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS:  WELCH,  BIGELOW,  &  Co., 
CAMBRIDGE. 


CONTENTS. 


ORCHARD  TALK     .... 

A  PROSE  HENRIADE  . 

LARVA  LESSONS      .... 

FANCY  FARMING 

A  COUNCIL  ABOUT  A  COUNCIL 

GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH 

THE  KINGDOM  COMING 

KING  JAMES  THE  FIRST    . 

WELL  DONE  . 


PAGE 
3 

34 
62 

IOO 

130 

153 
219 

255 
310 


101764 


SUMMER  REST 


UNIVERSITY 

OF  ^ 

ORCHARD    TALK. 


T  is  charged  that  Americans  have  no 
repose.  We  are  consumed  with  en 
ergy,  and  in  our  eagerness  to  do  have 
largely  lost  the  power  to  enjoy.  There 
is  some  ground  for  the  remark ;  but  possibly  we 
have  in  our  character  the  elements  of  repose, 
though  our  circumstances  have  not  yet  contrib 
uted  to,  or  even  been  tolerant  of,  its  development. 
Certain  it  is  that  there  can  be  no  true  repose  save 
in  connection  with  right  action.  Absolute  quie 
tude  we  cannot  command,  but  absolute  quietude 
is  not  indispensable.  A  boundless  activity  may 
carry  along  with  it  all  the  conditions  of  perfect 
rest. 

We  speak  of  the  quiet  of  the  country,  and  truly 
our  souls  find  solace  there  and  peace.  But  the 
country  seems  to  be  the  place  of  all  places  where 
everything  is  going  on.  Especially  in  spring  one 
becomes  almost  distracted.  What  is  spring  in  the 
city  ?  Dead  bricks  under  your  feet ;  dead  stones 
all  around  you.  There  are  beautiful  things  in  the 


4  SUMMER  REST, 

shop  windows,  but  they  never  do  anything.  It 
is  just  the  same  as  it  was  yesterday  and  as  it  will 
be  to-morrow.  I  suppose  a  faint  sense  of  warmth 
and  fragrance  does  settle  down  into  the  city's  old 
cold  heart,  and  at  a  few  breathing-holes  —  little 
irregular  patches  as  we  see  them,  lovely  but  mi 
nute,  called  "Central  Park"  or  " Boston  Com 
mon  "  —  Nature  comes  up  to  blow.  And  there 
are  the  spring  bonnets.  Still,  as  a  general  thing, 
it  can  hardly  make  much  difference  whether  it  be 
June  or  January. 

But  Spring  in  the  country,  —  O  season  rightly 
named  !  —  a  goddess-queen  glides  through  the 
heavens,  and  the  earth  and  all  that  is  therein 
springs  up  to  meet  her  and  do  obeisance.  We, 
gross  and  heavy,  blind  and  deaf,  are  slow  to  catch 
the  flutter  of  her  robes,  the  music  of  her  footfall, 
the  odor  of  her  breath,  the  brightness  of  her  far- 
off  coming.  We  call  it  cold  and  winter  still.  We 
huddle  about  the  fires  and  wonder  if  the  spring 
will  never  come ;  and  all  the  while,  lo,  the  spring 
is  here  !  Ten  thousand  watching  eyes,  ten  thou 
sand  waiting  ears,  laid  along  the  ground,  have 
signalled  the  royal  approach.  Ten  thousand  times 
ten  thousand  voices  sound  the  notes  of  preparation. 
Every  tiny  sleeping  germ  of  animal  and  of  vege 
table  life  springs  to  its  feet,  wide  awake,  girded  for 
duty,  vigilant  but  unhurried,  eager,  active,  and 
most  orderly.  Now  you  must  be  wide  awake  too, 
or  you  will  miss  the  sights. 


ORCHARD   TALK.  5 

And  each  spring  is  more  lovely  than  the  last. 
Tenderer  green  on  the  earth,  intenser  blue  in 
the  sky,  deeper  colors,  sweeter  voices,  busier  feet, 
happier  hearts,  as  the  Summer  comes  softly  singing 
through  the  meadows  and  pouring  her  fragrance 
on  the  air.  Every  year  it  floats  into  my  thought, 
"  I  will  write  something  beautiful  about  the  sum 
mer,"  from  pure  longing  to  celebrate  its  loveliness 
in  gratitude  for  its  behests ;  but  I  never  write  the 
beautiful  thing,  no,  nor  ever  shall.  For  the  sum 
mer  absorbs  you  unawares.  The  birds  and  the 
bees  and  the  buds  are  so  busy ;  the  lambs  in  the 
fields,  the  fishes  in  the  brooks,  the  cattle  on  a 
thousand  hills,  —  with  them  is  no  delay  nor  excus 
ing.  And  while  you  are  living  all  these  dear 
dumb  lives,  gradually  the  clouds  grow  leaden,  the 
wind  whistles,  the  leaves  shiver  and  shrivel  and 
fall,  and  of  a  sudden  you  look  up  to  find  that  the 
summer  is  gone.  Now,  therefore,  fair  goddess, 
take,  I  pray,  my  speechless  enjoyment  for  meet 
celebration,  and  count  me  no  ingrate  because  I 
cannot  say  the  thing  I  would. 

But  as  yet  the  summer  is  here,  warm  and  sun 
ny  and  scented,  pouring  through  the  windows  and 
filling  house  and  heart  with  newness  of  life ;  sink 
ing  into  the  brown  earth,  subtile  and  sinuous,  to 
rise  again  in  vivid  hues  and  graceful  forms.  And 
the  birds  are  here.  They  came  up  early  from 
the  summer-land,  —  bluebirds  and  robins  and  all 
manner  of  winged  wonders,  familiar  and  strange, 


6  SUMMER  REST. 

driven  northward,  so  the  country  folk  say,  by  the 
long  roar  and  smoke  and  horror  of  battle.  We 
have  a  line  of  old  apple-trees  on  the  south  bor 
der,  marvellously  gnarled  and  unsightly,  curiously 
crooked  as  one  might  say,  a  fat  feeding-ground  for 
worms  and  caterpillars,  bearing  little  fruit,  and  that 
untoothsome.  A  really  thrifty  and  sensible  axe 
would  speedily  lay  itself  at  their  roots ;  but  such 
is  none  of  ours,  and  they  shall  not  down.  For 
every  spring  the  faithful  old  patriarchs  go  through 
all  the  forms  of  fruitage  as  dutifully  as  if  they 
meant  to  fill  our  bins  with  Baldwins.  Some  se 
cret  influence,  which  our  hard  humanity  cannot 
discern,  but  which  the  vegetable  world  knows  and 
answers  joyfully,  floats  through  the  night,  a  low 
voice  stirs  the  heart  beneath  their  wrinkled  boles, 
the  old  sap  asserts  itself,  old  ambitions  revive,  and 
with  the  dewy  dawn,  lo !  the  apple-trees  have 
thrilled  into  bloom.  What  if  strength  fails  them 
to  redeem  their  promise  in  some  distant,  doubtful 
October  ?  At  least  the  whole  air  is  a  sea  of  per 
fume  now,  and  the  waves  come  rolling  in  at  all 
the  windows,  flooding  us  with  fragrance.  You 
hardly  move  but  some  fresh  delicate  odor  smites 
you  softly,  waking  a  new  delight.  What  ravaging 
axe  shall  destroy  these  fountains  of  incense  ? 

And  the  old  trees,  misshapen,  uncouth,  and  well 
stricken  in  years,  are  fireside  and  forum,  temple 
and  theatre,  for  a  community  of  birds.  Little  they 
care  for  grim  bark,  or  twisted  branch,  or  pre- 


ORCHARD   TALK.  7 

empted  twig.  The  more  bugs  the  better  hunting- 
ground.  Every  insect  haunt  is  a  well-stocked 
Faneuil  Market  ready  to  hand.  In  every  worm 
they  see  a  new  pinfeather,  a  sharpening  claw,  a 
hardening  beak,  for  some  callow  darling.  I  watch 
them  hopping  about  on  the  grass  in  little  fits  and 
starts,  alighting  on  the  fence  and  musing  there 
with  an  air  of  intense  preoccupation,  flying  up 
into  the  trees  to  some  hidden  nook  among  the 
leafage  with  a  wisp  of  straw  for  building,  —  and  I 
could  find  it  in  my  heart  to  pity  them.  It  seems 
such  an  endless  task  to  make  a  nest,  straw  by 
by  straw,  painfully,  with  only  one  little  bill  for 
all  sorts  of  work.  But  they  seem  to  like  it. 
Labor  is  lightened  and  time  shortened  perhaps 
with  thinking  of  the  chosen  friend  who  is  to  share 
it  and  the  tiny  brood  that  is  to  be  sheltered  in  it. 
And  they  never  work  hard.  It  is  not  dig,  dig, 
dig  with  the  birds.  They  take  life  daintily,  lords 
and  ladies  in  their  own  right.  Toil  is  diversified 
by  game  and  song  and  social  chit-chat.  They 
will  leave  their  labor  for  no  cause  apparently, 
but  just  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  whirl  you 
a  wild  waltz  through  the  air  in  a  very  passion 
of  pastime,  then  stand  a-tilt  on  a  twig  and  trill 
out  for  a  second  or  two  a  reckless  roundelay  as 
if  the  whole  world  of  the  May-time  were  pouring 
its  joy  through  their  throats,  and  anon  the  min 
strel  is  down  among  the  grasses  again,  no  longer 
a  gay  Lothario,  a  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  but  a 


8  SUMMER  REST. 

quiet,  grave  family  bird,  busily  engaged  in  gather 
ing  materials  and  building  himself  a  local  habita 
tion.  And  what  heavenly  habitations  are  theirs  ! 
Think  of  living  in  a  great  green  overlapping  forest, 
green  above,  around,  beneath  you,  endless  aisles 
losing  themselves  in  endless  arches,  the  bright 
sky  glimmering  far  off,  the  bright  sun  shining  in 
through  a  thousand  portals  and  leaving  soft  waver 
ing  shadows  everywhere,  gentle  gales  whispering 
melodies  and  murmuring  sweet  lullabys,  or  some 
times  a  brave  breeze  trumpeting  some  martial 
air  that  rouses  all  the  fire  in  your  blood  ;  to  be 
surrounded  for  days  and  weeks  with  great  pink 
and  white  blossoms  bigger  than  your  head,  deeps 
overhead  and  deeps  underfoot,  drooping  and  swing 
ing  all  through  the  silent  night  and  the  sultry 
noon  and  dawn  and  twilight  between ;  and  every 
crystal  cup  brimmed  and  overflowing  with  pungent 
delicious  odors,  —  no  wonder  the  birds  are  drunken 
with  delight  and  pour  forth  such  mad  bacchanal 
songs  as  stagger  their  little  frames  and  set  the 
whole  orchard  a-tremble  ! 

If  they  only  would  be  tame,  —  the  shy,  nervous 
sprites  !  —  if  they  only  could  discern  friend  from 
foe,  and  let  you  who  love  them  so  draw  near  to 
share  their  pretty  secrets  !  But  tame  they  will  not 
be.  Sometimes,  in  venturesome  mood,  or  thinking 
perhaps  to  take  a  short  cut  across  lots,  they  dart 
through  an  open  window  and  shoot  about  the 
room  quite  bewildered.  But  if  you  catch  the 


ORCHARD   TALK.  9 

wanderer,  his  poor  heart  throbs  so  pitifully,  and 
there  is  such  a  still,  wild  terror  in  his  eyes,  that  you 
give  up  trying  to  make  him  count  you  his  friend, 
and  bid  him  back  again  to  tell  his  open-eared  com 
rades  the  story  of  his  feather-breadth  escape  from 
some  savage  monster,  —  you*     One  little  swallow 
slid  down  somehow  between  the  panes  of  a  window 
opened  from  the  top  and  almost  beat  himself  to 
death  in  trying  to  get  out.     His  flattened  body, 
spread  wings,  and  panting  struggles  were  sad  to 
see.     We  hardly  dared  move  the  window  lest  the 
sash  might  give  him  a  fatal  injury.     We  worked 
over  him  as  carefully  as  possible  full  fifteen  min 
utes,  and  freed  him  at  last,  but  "  Dead,  quite  dead, 
poor   little    thing ! "    I    said,  stroking   his   ruffled 
feathers  as  he  lay  upon  my  open  hand ;  whereupon 
he  winked  his  black  imp's  eye  at  me,  and  shot  off 
and  out  of  sight  in  a  second,  —  the  little  thankless 
rogue  !    Then  there  is  a  gray  sparrow  that  has  built 
her  nest  in  the  woodbine  and  a  ground  sparrow 
has  "  squatted  "  at  the  edge  of  the  cornfield ;  but 
no  sooner  do  you  approach  than  out  flutters  the 
one  from  her  quiet  bower  and  up  shoots  the  other 
from  her  snug  ambush,  flying  for  dear  life,  as  if 
you  could  meditate  the  smallest  mischief  to  their 
homely,  tiny  selves,  or  their  tiny  speckled  eggs. 
Birds,  I  was  thinking  one  morning,  must  be  or 
ought  to  be  thoroughly  happy.     They  have  all  the 
conditions   of  bliss,   these  orchard  birds,   enough 
to  eat,  stout  trees  for  shelter,  everything  that  the 
i* 


10  SUMMER  REST. 

ornithological  heart  can  dream.  No  bird  of  prey, 
no  gun  nor  snare  ever  comes  nigh  them.  They 
are  a  delight  to  eye  and  ear.  Paradise  is  here. 
Every  one  is  their  friend.  In  the  wide  universe 
they  have  no  foe.  And  while  the  thoughts  were 
yet  warm  within  me,  up  the  porch-steps  trotted 
Rory  the  cat,  with  fierce  eyes  glittering  and  a 
dead  bird  hanging  from  her  jaws.  And  the  very 
next  day  another,  and  not  long  after  a  third ;  and 
many  and  many  a  time  since  have  I  seen  her  crouch 
ing  and  watching,  her  bones  all  astir  with  eager 
ness,  or  stealthily  creeping  on  behind  an  unwary 
thrush  or  clawing  up  into  the  trees  in  hot  pursuit. 
Too  often  a  little  heap  of  blood-bedabbled  feath 
ers  attests  her  fell  success.  You  can  chase  her 
away,  but  to  no  moral  effect.  She  takes  the 
chasing  for  a  frolic,  and  only  capers  about  like  a 
mad  creature,  scudding  atop  of  the  fences,  couch 
ing  on  the  posts,  leaping  on  the  shed-roof  and 
mounting  to  the  ridge-pole  of  the  barn.  But 
Paradise  has  not  yet  come,  even  for  the  birds. 
I  find  they  have  enemies  and  are  often  sore  bested. 
They  are  like  a  young  author.  He  flits  jauntily 
into  the  sunshine  and  song  of  the  world,  pouring 
forth  his  own  note  gayly,  never  suspecting  but  he 
will  be  as  gladly  welcomed  as  he  gladly  goes. 
But  no  sooner  is  his  strain  fairly  afloat  on  the  air 
than  out  springs  a  surly  critic  from  every  corner 
and  rends  him  in  pieces  remorselessly. 

I  said  so  to  my  friend  Halicarnassus,  one  morn- 


ORCHARD   TALK.  11 

ing  as  we  were  sitting  on  the  threshold  of  the 
back  barn-door  that  opens  into  the  orchard,  to 
which  he  replied  :  "  Your  simile  is  very  touching ; 
but  as  a  sober  fact,  your  young  author  is  not  always 
so  innocent  and  unsophisticated  as  you  represent 
him.  If,  instead  of  pouring  his  melody  on  the 
charmed  air  he  makes  his  debut  with  a  sharp  stick, 
poking  it  into  everybody's  pet  prejudice,  stirring 
up  all  the  settled  customs,  and  thrusting  in  pell- 
mell  among  the  creeds,  he  may  reckon  on  being 
poked  back  again.  You  cannot  expect  the  world, 
the  flesh,  and  the  Devil  to  sit  still  and  be  quietly 
abolished.  If  you  want  smooth  sailing,  you  must 
not  sail  in  the  teeth  of  the  wind." 

I.  I  do  not  want  smooth  sailing;  and  as  you 
and  I  have  never  fallen  in  with  literary  persons, 
and  must  depend  entirely  upon  conjecture  in  these 
matters,  let  me  recommend  that,  in  order  to  avoid 
the  appearance  of  personality,  you  substitute  "  one  " 
for  "  you."  But  it  is  not  true,  that  if  you  sail  with 
the  wind  you  will  always  secure  smooth  sailing. 
There  are  many  authors  who  have  no  sharp  stick, 
who  deal  only  in  feathers  and  honey,  and  are  yet 
harshly  entreated. 

H.  Stupidity  is  the  unpardonable  sin  in  litera 
ture. 

I.  No  :  stupidity  that  is  not  aggressive  might 
be  let  alone.  There  is  no  harm  done  when  a  dull 
book  is  published.  Why  harry  the  author  ? 

H.  It  becomes   my  painful  duty  to  contradict 


12  SUMMER  REST. 

you,  and  say  that  there  is  often  much  harm  done. 
A  great  part  of  our  religious  bigotry,  for  instance, 
is  the  direct  handiwork  of  men  whose  position 
requires  them  to  think,  and  the  shape  and  contents 
of  whose  skulls  incapacitate  them  for  thinking. 
Their  only  fault  is,  that  they  take  the  place  of 
leaders  when  they  ought  to  be  followers.  Having 
no  capital  of  their  own  they  borrow,  and  not 
being  able  to  grasp  large  ideas,  they  possess  them 
selves  of  narrowness,  and  prejudice,  and  tradition, 
which  they  deliver  over  to  the  masses  as  gospel. 
The  latter  take  their  religion  on  trust.  Their  tastes 
do  not  incline  them,  or  their  education  does  not 
enable  them,  or  their  occupations  do  not  permit 
them,  to  investigate  for  themselves.  All  the  more 
important  is  it  that  what  is  given  them  should  be 
the  truth.  But  it  is  not  truth,  or  it  is  only  partial 
truth,  whose  effect  is  falsehood.  So  mischief  is 
wrought,  generation  after  generation,  till  the  heart 
of  "I.e  Christian  community  seems  to  be  so  en 
crusted  with  intellectual  error  —  let  alone  its  in 
nate  weakness  or  wickedness  —  as  to  be  wellnigh 
impregnable.  I  question  sometimes  whether  it 
would  not  be  well  to  have  church  organizations 
broken  up,  church  buildings  torn  down,  and  the 
whole  religious  world  fused  into  one  homogeneous 
mass,  to  see  if  it  cannot  crystallize  anew  into  some 
thing  better  than  we  have  now. 

I.  I  am  afraid  you  would  have  less  fusion  than 
confusion. 


ORCHARD   TALK.  13 

H.  Chaos  was  the  mother  of  the  world. 

I.  But  God  was  its  Father,  and  I  suspect  the 
Church  people  generally  would  think  it  was  quite 
another  being  who  was  to  be  the  father  of  your 
new  order  of  things. 

H.  Well,  if  you  will  undertake  to  undo  the 
wrong  that  has  been  done  by  pious  dulness,  I  will 
very  readily  engage  to  dispose  of  the  evil  wrought 
by  brilliant  wickedness,  and  we  will  let  things 
stand  awhile  longer. 

I.  I  suppose  it  is  the  former  that  fructifies  the 
seed  of  the  latter.  Still  I  think  you  are  too  hard 
on  the  stupid  ones.  As  long  as  the  world  lasts, 
there  will  be  bright  people  who  are  not  good  and 
good  people  who  are  not  bright;  and  I  for  one 
am  not  prepared  to  give  the  palm  to  the  former. 

H.  Nor  I.  It  is  only  when  the  blind  set  up 
to  lead  the  blind  that  I  object,  and  for  the  sole 
reason  that  they  lead  us  all  into  the  ditch. 

I.  But  I  was  not  thinking  so  much,  after  all, 
of  religious  or  moral  as  of  merely  literary  writing. 
There  are  the  daughters  of  Tupper,  for  instance, 
who  have  printed  some  verses,  —  very  good,  I  dare 
say. 

H.  Very  moral,  I  dare  swear. 

I.  Yet  some  of  the  newspapers  have  been  load 
ing  them  down  with  sarcasm  as  assiduously  as  if 
their  book  was  going  to  be  fatal  to  the  British 
supremacy  if  it  were  not  speedily  suppressed.  To 
what  purpose  ?  They  have  a  clear  right  to  pub  - 
lish  verses,  as  well  as  Milton  and  Shakespeare. 


14  SUMMER  REST. 

H.  And  I  have  a  clear  right  to  publish  my 
opinion  that  they  are  spooney. 

I.  Not  necessarily.  Why  should  you  not  be 
polite  with  your  pen  as  well  as  with  your  tongue  ? 
If  Miss  Tupper  should  pay  you  a  morning  visit, 
you  would  think  it  very  discourteous  to  ridicule 
her,  though  her  conversation  were  ever  so  foolish. 
Why  shall  ninety-nine  persons  be  permitted  to 
talk  nonsense  all  their  lives  while  the  hundredth 
cannot  print  the  nonsense  of  an  hour  or  two  with 
out  being  publicly  executed  ? 

H.  The  talk  dies  with  the  moment,  but  the 
printed  folly  puts  in  a  claim  for  immortality,  which 
we  vociferously  deny. 

"J.  But  it  would  soon  sink  of  its  own  weight,  if 
you  would  let  it  alone. 

H.  Not  always.  It  often  happens  that  some 
incidental  interest  of  subject,  of  time,  or  of  puffing 
gives  a  book  a  circulation  and  reputation  which 
its  merits  would  not  secure :  it  acquires  there 
by  a  power  to  injure  the  morals,  the  taste,  and 
the  good  name  of  the  community  ;  and  such  books 
ought  to  be  picked  off  by  the  sharpshooters  in  the 
interests  of  virtue. 

I.  But  the  Misses  Tupper's  poetry  would  do 
nothing  of  the  sort.  It  would  neither  go  far 
enough  nor  deep  enough.  I  dare  say  it  has  no 
positive  faults  — 

H.  Only  wants  body. 

I.  If  you  mean  by  "  body  "  — 


ORCHARD   TALK.  15 

H.  Soul. 

I.  At  any  rate,  it  has  no  mischief- working  quali 
ties.  It  is  doubtless  good  common  poetry.  But 
there  is  a  notion  that  real  criticism  consists  in 
cutting  and  slashing.  Yet  as  much  stupidity  may 
be  shown  in  censure  as  in  praise,  besides  all  the 
ill-nature.  To  find  fault  is  not  necessarily  to  be 
wise.  Criticisms  that  are  meant  to  be  sharp  are 
sometimes  only  savage.  They  have  what  Dr.  New 
man  would  call  "  the  provincial  note."  I  think 
the  good-natured,  indiscriminate  puffs  are  much 
better  than  the  ill-natured,  indiscriminate  growls 
with  which  some  have  attempted  to  supplant  them. 

H.  Better  of  the  two.  But  there  is  something 
better  than  either. 

I.  Of  course.  Wisdom  to  discern  between  the 
evil  and  the  good,  and  leisure  and  patience  to 
point  out  both.  But  if  you  cannot  command  this, 
why  then  give  me  shallowness  that  is  amiable 
rather  than  shallowness  that  is  cross.  I  would 
establish  it  as  an  indispensable  rule,  that  criticism 
to  be  severe  needs  to  be  skilful.  Let  us  have 
the  scymitar  of  Saladin,  but  no  hewing  and  hack 
ing  of  a  rusty  Toledo  trusty  in  the  hands  of  a 
Hudibras. 

H.  The  author  has  always  this  to  fall  back 
on,  —  that  the  public  is  a  perfectly  upright  court 
of  appeal.  It  is  a  fair  fight  between  him  and  his 
critic ;  and  magna  est  veritas  and  will  prevail  a  bit, 
generally,  as  we  used  to  say  in  college. 


16  SUMMER  REST. 

L  Not  always,  for  the  writer  deals  only  with 
his  subject,  while  the  critic  deals  with  both  writer 
and  subject,  and  therefore  occupies  a  superior  po 
sition  in  the  eyes  of  the  people;  but  where  the 
writer  does  prevail  over  the  critic,  it  is  all  the 
more  signal  a  victory.  I  remember,  for  instance, 
reading  some  depreciating  remarks  on  "  Azarian  " 
in  the  North  American  Review.  At  the  time  they 
seemed  to  have  force,  to  be  indeed  final.  But 
I  read  "  Azarian  "  again  from  mere  curiosity,  and 
found  its  locks  entirely  unshorn.  It  had  not  lost  a 
single  charm,  —  which  is  a  far  stronger  proof  of 
merit  than  any  first  reading  could  give ;  but  most 
people  will  not  take  the  trouble  to  re-read.  They 
accept  the  critic's  judgment. 

H.  I  recollect  that  paper.  It  was  unjust  not 
so  much  in  what  it  said  as  in  what  it  failed  to  say. 
The  book  has  faults  in  the  direction  there  indicated, 
only  it  has  merits  not  there  indicated. 

I.  And  merits  so  great  that  not  to  indicate  them 
is  to  give  a  false  presentation  of  the  book.  Noth 
ing  can  be  more  unjust  than  to  expend  all  one's 
ingenuity  and  energy  on  a  few  surface  faults,  and 
entirely  pass  over  the  great  strength,  the  solid  sub 
stance  of  a  book. 

//.  One  cannot  include  everything,  even  in  a 
review  article. 

/.  No ;  but  therefore  one  should  not  assume  to 
have  done  everything.  If  a  critic  has  time  or 
space  for  only  the  defects  of  a  book,  very  well ; 


ORCHARD   TALK.  17 

but  let  him  state  the  fact,  and  make  it  clear  to 
his  reader,  that  there  are  merits,  and  that  they 
stand  in  such  and  such  relation  to  the  faults. 
Now  "  Azarian  "  has  somewhat  fine  and  powerful, 
something  different  from  and  superior  to  anything 
else  that  Miss  Prescott  has  written,  which  not  to 
see  is  to  be  blind.  Why,  it  is  as  if  Undine  had 
found  her  soul. 

j£T.  That  is  true ;  and  if  Miss  Prescott  goes  on 
working  the  vein  she  opened  there,  and —  I 
have  the  material  for  a  magnificent  metaphor  in 
my  head.  You  might  set  up  in  trade  for. yourself 
if  you  could  only  get  at  it. 

I.  And  works  up  the  gold  she  digs  out  into  the 
beautiful  shapes  that  dazzle  and  delight  us  even 
when  the  material  is  soap-suds  and  the  product 
soap-bubbles,  —  that  is  what  you  mean  ? 

H.  Something  like  that,  but  far  finer. 

I.  There  is  this,  however,  that  when  you  attack 
a  writer  of  established  position  like  Miss  Prescott 
you  take  your  life  in  your  hands,  but  you  may 
throw  as  many  sticks  and  stones  at  the  little 
Tuppers  as  you  like.  Their  father  makes  them 
a  lawful  target.  But  it  is  very  silly  and  very 
cowardly  to  attack  Mr.  Tupper.  In  fact  he  has 
been  so  much  abused  that  I  begin  to  suspect  he 
is  a  far  greater  man  than  we  have  been  imagining. 

If.  Certainly.  Contemporary  opinion  does  not 
go  for  much.  Milton's  Paradise  Lost,  and  so 
forth,  Seven  Grecian  Cities,  and  so  forth. 


18  SUMMER   REST. 

I.  Then  spare  your  shafts.  Don't  force  inno 
cent  people  to  suffer  the  pain  of  seeing  themselves 
and  their  verses  mocked  at  in  the  morning  paper. 

H.  O,  if  it  comes  to  that,  it  is  not  so  bad  as  you 
think.  Everybody  has  his  little  clique  of  ad 
mirers,  who  stand  between  him  and  the  scorching 
fire  of  criticism,  just  as  a  drop  of  water  is  sheltered 
by  its  own  steam  from  the  heat  of  the  stove  it  is 
dancing  round  upon.  Providence  has  blessed  us  all 
with  an  inexhaustible  fertility  of  devices  to  ward 
off  attacks  upon  our  self-love.  We  can  attribute 
censure  to  pique  or  anything  but  truth,  and  so 
take  heart  again. 

I.  Yes,  and  that  reminds  me  of  something  else. 
You  know  Robertson's  Life  and  Letters  ? 

H.  I  don't  know  anything  else,  speaking  after 
the  manner  of  men.  Every  periodical  for  the  last 
three  months  has  blossomed  and  borne  Robertson. 
Doubtless  he  was  a  brick,  so  to  say,  but  one  may 
have  too  much  of  a  good  thing.  And  the  quarter 
lies  have  riot  had  their  turn  at  him  yet. 

I.  It  only  shows  that  when  we  have  a  hero  we 
make  the  most  of  him,  which  is  much  better  than 
to  let  him  die  and  (we)  give  no  sign.  But  I  was 
going  to  say  that  I  do  not  understand  how  with 
his  unquestioned  bravery,  strength,  and  grandeur, 
and  all  his  clearness  of  perception,  he  could  have 
suffered  so  much  from  opposition  and  misrepre 
sentation,  or  even  loneliness.  All  these  things 
were  but  the  natural  consequence  of  his  own  out- 


ORCHARD   TALK.  19 

spoken  words,  and  to  be  expected.  No  misfortune 
happened  unto  him  but  such  as  is  common  unto 
men  who  battle  with  popular  error,  and  the  more 
fiercely  they  give  battle,  the  more  clamorous  will 
be  the  outcry  of  their  foes.  But  to  be  moved  in 
one's  life  by  it  seems  to  me  unreasonable.  One 
should  count  the  cost  before  going  to  war,  and  if 
he  cannot  stand  the  strain,  let  him  not  draw  the 
sword.  Robertson's  purpose,  we  must  suppose, 
was  to  promulgate  truth,  to  promote  righteous 
ness.  All  the  malignity  he  awakened  was  but 
the  dust  of  the  conflict,  — -  not  agreeable,  but  surely 
not  unprecedented  :  the  smoke  and  vapor  of  the 
valley  to  him  who  stands  on  the  mountain-tops. 
They  are  to  be  cleared  away  because  they  hide 
the  sun  from  the.  lowlands;  but  they  have  no 
power  to  touch  the  hidden  springs  of  happiness 
in  his  heart  who  dwells  in  the  eternal  sunshine. 
Truth  is  so  beautiful,  so  satisfying. 

H.  Sympathy  and  approbation  and  one's  fellow- 
men,  and  especially  women,  are  very  pleasant  too. 

I.  But  not  indispensable,  while  there  are  things 
which  you  do  from  an  irresistible  impulse.  You 
speak  not  because  you  so  decide,  but  a  voice  utters 
itself  through  your  lips.  If  there  is  a  foe  in  your 
own  heart  crying  amen  to  the  charges  without, 
you  may  have  misgivings ;  but  when  you  are  sure, 
hatred  and  love  are  one  to  you.  It  is  not  only  a 
better  but  a  happier  thing  to  stand  alone  clear- 
eyed,  than  to  consort  with  the  mob  blindly  groping. 


20  SUMMER  REST. 

Their  outcry  is  only  obstruction  to  be  surmounted. 
It  has  nothing  to  do  with  your  life.  To  receive 
the  secret  of  the  Lord,  to  bear  the  sacred  trust, 
what  blessing  in  all  the  world  can  be  compared 
to  this  ?  Talk  of  sympathy !  Why,  you  don't 
expect  sympathy  in  those  whose  Dagon  you  are 
felling.  If  they  sympathized  with  you,  you  would 
not  be  talking;  at  all. 

O 

H.  It  strikes  me  that  is  just  my  case. 

I.  But  is  n't  it  so  ? 

IT.  O  yes.  I  always  suspected  you  would 
march  to  the  stake  and  rather  like  it,  if  you 
could  but  go  alone. 

I.  Never.  And  I  am  thankful  to  live  in  the 
days  when  opposition,  at  its  very  worst,  takes  the 
shape  of  paragraphs,  and  sneers,  and  coarse  per 
sonalities,  rather  than  of  wheel  and  thumb-screw 
and  fagot.  No  ;  I  fear  I  should  recant  everything 
rather  than  be  burnt  with  green  wood.  I  should 
confess  that  the  existing  order  of  things  is  not 
only  the  best  that  has  yet  existed,  but  the  best 
that  can  be  dreamed  of ;  that  tyranny  and  sensu 
ality  and  bigotry  and  selfishness  are  pure  and 
sacred,  to  object  to  which  is  immorality  and  athe 
ism  and  sour  grapes.  But  I  don't  know  any 
power  at  the  present  day  that  could  make  me 
admit  this.  As  for  calling  the  little  desagremens 
resulting  from  modern  disapprobation  trouble,  it 
is  for  a  healthy  person  simply  absurd ;  while,  re 
garding  loneliness,  he  that  is  accompanied  by  the 


ORCHARD   TALK.  21 

truth  seems  to  me  exceeding  well  companioned. 
Nay,  I  would  think  it  better  to  catch  a  glimpse 
of  her  garments  far  off,  to  follow  her,  and  woo 
and  win  her  to  rectify  and  sweeten  the  common 
life  that  is  so  bitter  and  wrong,  than  sit  at  ease 
in  the  smiles  of  the  wrong-doing  multitude. 

H.        "In  vain  the  human  heart  we  mock, 

Bring  living  guests  who  love  the  day, 
Nor  ghosts  who  fly  at  crow  of  cock. 
The  herbs  we  share  with  flesh  and  blood 
Are  better  than  ambrosial  food, 
With  laurelled  shades." 

J.  I  grant  it  nothing  loath ;  but  doubly  blessed 
was  Robertson,  who  could  partake  of  both.  Are 
not  husband  and  wife  company  ? 

H.  That  depends  — 

I.  Depends  on  what  ? 

H.  Times  and  seasons.  Some  men's  wives  are 
mere  housekeepers,  and  housekeepers  are  good 
company  when  you  are  cold  and  hungry;  and 
others  are  playthings,  and  playthings  are  good 
company  when  you  wish  only  to  be  amused :  and 
some  women's  husbands  are  watch-dogs,  which 
are  the  best  of  company  when  you  are  afraid  of 
robbers.  The  fact  is,  only  a  few  of  us  are  per 
fect,  and  most  of  our  domestic  relations  savor  of 
the  earth  if  not  of  sulphur. 

I.  But  our  domestic  relations  are  no  more  sul 
phurous  than  our  social  relations,  —  though  I  don't 
see  what  the  end  of  your  answer  has  to  do  with 


22  SUMMER  REST. 

ft 

the  beginning.  A  man  and  his  wife  are  no  more 
imperfect  than  a  man  and  his  friend.  But  you 
don't  dismiss  friendship  from  the  realms  of  fact 
with  the  cavalier  remark  that  we  all  savor  of 
sulphur.  If  a  man  can  find  sympathy  and  solace 
in  any  human  being,  he  surely  ought  to  find  it  in 
the  one  he  has  won  out  of  the  whole  world  for 
the  express  purpose  of  being  his  companion.  Now 
I  say  no  matter  how  much  opposition  or  obloquy 
one  may  encounter  outside,  if  he  is  married, — 
married  in  any  such  sense  as  is  worthy  the  name, 
—  it  would  not  be  possible  for  him  to  be  lonely. 
He  might  feel  the  w^ant  of  support  in  pushing 
on  his  work,  but  there  would  be  no  void  in  his 
life.  His  hard  intellectual  work  would  fill  his 
head  and  his  wife  would  fill  his  heart.  Yet, 
Robertson  writes,  "  I  am  alone,  and  shall  be  till  I 
die,"  and  I  think  it  was  very  inconsiderate  and 
wicked  in  him  to  say  it.  A  woman  might  break 
her  heart  over  a  less  indignity  than  that. 

H.  Hear!  hear! 

I.  O,  now  you  may  laugh. 

H.  I  am  thankful  even  for  so  much. 

I.  But  just  ask  yourself,  how  would  a  man  feel 
if  his  wife  wrote  to  her  female  friend,  "  I  am 
alone,  and  shall  be  till  I  die  "  ;  and  not  once,  but 
repeatedly  ?  It  would  be  just  a  confession  of  his 
failure  towards  her. 

H.  Is  it  not  just  possible  there  may  have  been 
some  failure  on  her  part  towards  him  ? 


ORCHARD   TALK.  23 

I.  No,  at  least  we  will  not  suppose  it  possible. 
It  would  be  a  monstrosity  which  may  occur  in  fact, 
but  must  not  be  introduced  in  fiction.  What  I 
suspect  and  fear  and  oppose  is,  that  he  did  not 
look  to  her  for  what  he  wanted,  not  imagining  the 
ore  that  lay  there  unwrought.  If  he  did,  and  she 
withheld  her  hand,  of  course  there  is  nothing  more 
to  be  said  ;  only  if  men  will  not  explore  a  mine 
before  they  take  possession,  they  have  themselves 
to  blame  when  they  find  they  are  bankrupt. 

If.  But  if  a  woman's  gold  turns  out  to  be 
pyrites,  she  may  fill  the  air  with  wailing. 

J.  Well,  a  man  has  tracts  to  "prospect"  in  so 
rich  and  broad,  that  it  would  seem  to  be  the  most 
egregious  blindness  that  should  blunder,  while  the 
gold-field  that  stretches  before  a  woman  is  often 
but  a  corner  lot,  where  it  is  pyrites  or  nothing. 
And  the  pyrites  glitters,  and  there  is  no  gold  to 
compare  it  with ;  so  it  is  less  surprising  when  she 
makes  a  bad  investment.  No,  I  am  afraid  Mr. 
Robertson  did  not  know  what  was  good  for  him. 

H.  What  is  it  that  Browning  says,  — 

Turn,  turn,  "  a  path  of  gold  for  him, 

And  the  need  of  a  world  of  men  for  me  "  ? 

I.  But  Robertson  had  his  world  of  men  too. 
His  profession  was  in  the  midst  of  the  world. 
His  work  was  such  as  one  might  suppose  would 
bring  out  everything  that  was  in  him  of  aggressive 
power.  He  was  in  the  midst  of  active,  manly 
vigor.  He  had  just  such  a  life  as  a  wife  should 


24  SUMMER  REST. 

round  and  perfect.  I  cannot  imagine  anything 
in  this  world  better.  A  good  sword  to  wield,  a 
fierce  fight  with  wrong,  and  a  home  for  the  heart's 
life,  —  and  yet  those  dreadful  words  I 

H.  On  the  whole,  does  it  not  occur  to  you  that 
you  may  be  making  much  ado  about  nothing  ? 
I  dare  say  Mrs.  Robertson  was  more  than  satis 
fied, —  counted  herself  a  supremely  happy  wo 
man.  Why,  then,  should  you  fret? 

I.  She  ought  not  to  have  been  satisfied. 

H.  It  is  a  pity  that  some  people  will  persist 
in  thinking  themselves  happy  in  spite  of  the  obsti 
nate  endeavors  of  philanthropy  to  enlighten  them 
as  to  the  true  state  of  the  case. 

/.  Some  people  have  a  way  of  shutting  their 
eyes  to  what  they  do  not  choose  to  see. 

H.  Let  us  fall  back,  rather,  on  the  commonplace 
supposition  that  the  good  man's  illness  and  suffer 
ing  made  him  morbid  and  unduly  sensitive,  or  that 
something  was  kept  back  in  his  life,  —  some  in 
ward  jar  and  shock,  —  which,  if  we  knew  it,  would 
account  for  his  tremulo,  —  which  would  leave 
him  never  again  quite  trustful.  Is  not  something 
somewhere  said  about  a  "  blow,  the  sudden  ruin 
of  a  close  friendship  "  ?  Such  a  thing  might,  I 
conceive,  change  the  whole  current  of  a  man's 
being. 

I.  Yes,  and  these  causes,  too,  may  excuse  the 
tone  of  complaint  which  sometimes  rises  high  in 
his  letters,  giving  —  well,  now,  it  seems  almost 


ORCHARD   TALK.  25 

wrong  to  say  so,  but  I  think  there  is  just  a  shade 
of  unmanliness. 

H.  But  remember  all  the  complaining  we  read 
of  was  spread  over  his  whole  life,  though  we  read 
it  in  a  few  hours.  It  probably  makes  an  impres 
sion  greater  on  us  than  on  his  friends,  who  felt  it 
only  at  intervals  of  months,  perhaps  years. 

I.  True,  and  I  don't  know  that  one  really 
loves  him  less  for  this  life  of  his,  but  one,  per 
haps,  reverences  him  less.  It  makes  him  a  little 
more  common.  It  shows  him  only  level  with  the 
clouds,  and  not  high  enough  for  the  eternal  sun 
shine  above  them.  But  perfect  strength  makes 
no  outcry.  It  is  so  grand  to  be  calm.  It  is  so  he 
roic  .to  be  untouched.  It  is  so  godlike  to  give  all 
things,  and  crave  nothing.  Ah  well,  Robertson 
was  thoroughly  noble  !  —  who  shall  cast  a  stone  at 
him  ?  —  only  he  was  a  little  unstrung  by  illness, 
and  so  did  not  take  his  troubles  so  cheerily  as 
he  otherwise  would  have  done. 

H.  But  if  you  take  your  troubles  cheerily,  how 
is  any  one  to  know  you  have  troubles  ? 

I.   What  if  no  one  should  know  ? 

H.  You  get  no  credit  for  ^your  endurance. 
What  does  it  profit  to  be  a  hero,  and  nobody 
know  it  ?  Put  your  annoyances  out  of  sight,  and 
go  blithely  about  your  business,  and  what  is  the 
gain  ?  Admiration  for  your  heroism  ?  By  no 
means.  People  only  say  you  do  not  mind  these 
things,  and  keep  on  inflicting  them.  Silent  en- 
2 


26  SUMMER  REST. 

durance  must  be  blatant,  or  it  will  not  be  count 
ed  in. 

I.  O,  I  would  not  have  any  one  bear  what  can 
be  helped.  That  is  sloth,  not  fortitude.  And 
if  you  cannot  bear  alo'he  what  is  inevitable,  why 
you  must  have  recourse  to  others.  But  it  is 
better  to  bear  it  alone.  The  measure  of  our 
weakness  is  the  measure  of  our  strength,  —  if 
we  conquer  it. 

If.  I  admire  that  sentence,  —  especially  its  per 
spicuity. 

I.  Why  do  you  sit  here  idling  away  your  time 
all  the  morning  ?  Why  do  you  not  go  and  feed 
the  cows,  or  pull  weeds,  or  do  some  such  work  as 
is  adapted  to  your  capacities  ? 

If  you  are  tired,  dear  reader,  or  have  some 
thing  else  to  do,  you  can  make  believe  the  chapter 
ends  here  ;  but  I  have  nothing  else  to  do,  am  not 
at  all  tired,  and  shall  go  on  indefinitely. 

For  the  full-blown  summer  weather  is  too  fine 
for  anything  but  to  sit  in  the  sunshine  and  shade 
and  enjoy  it.  When  the  whole  earth  is  alert,  one 
can  afford  to  be  idle,  with  a  most  fruitful  idleness. 
Indeed,  one  can  afford  nothing  else,  for  the  beauty 
of  the  month  of  months  is  too  rare  and  perfect 
a  thing  to  miss  without  grievous  loss.  It  is  a 
pitiable  waste  to  squander  May-days  and  Junes 
for  care  and  weariness,  and  gold  and  dross,  that 
perish  with  the  using.  There  is  plenty  of  winter 


ORCHARD   TALK.  27 

for  professional  uses  in  a  climate  like  ours.  Now 
let  us  medicine  our  pride  by  laying  aside  our  blun 
dering,  blustering  busy-ness,  and  see  how  rhythmi 
cally  this  old  Mother  Earth  does  her  work.  It 
is  just  to  loiter  and  loiter,  to  listen  and  linger. 
It  is  only  to  stroll  out  aimlessly,  alone  or  in  such 
company  as  deepens  and  sweetens  solitude ;  to 
follow  the  drift  of  the  shadows  and  the  droop  of 
the  violets ;  straying  through  the  orchard,  ankle- 
deep  in  the  dense,  purple  clover,  sweet  to  sight 
and  smell  and  taste ;  —  and  there  stands  soft-eyed 
Mooly,  her  head  well  stretched  over  the  orchard 
wall,  smelling  the  tempting  smells,  and  wishing 
she  were  in  your  shoes.  Stroke  her  long  nose, 
pressing  up  to  meet  your  hand.  Beautiful  Mooly, 
with  your  lovely  longing  eyes,  do  not  be  impa 
tient.  It  is  all  going  to  be  yours  by  and  by,  the 
honey-sweet  clover  and  the  buttercups  and  the 
juicy  rich  grass.  It  is  not  so  bad  a  thing  to  be  a 
cow,  after  all.  And  this  Mooly  cow,  mild  as  she 
looks,  loves  her  fat  pastures  and  has  a  will  of  her 
own.  I  go  after  her  sometimes  at  night,  and 
though  she  has  nothing  to  do  but  eat  and  drink  all 
day  long,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  get  her  past  the 
clover-banks  in  the  lane.  An  affectionate  pat  on 
her  back  and  sides  moves  her  but  a  single  step. 
I  take  hold  of  a  horn  and  pull.  I  might  as  well 
pull  at  the  bow  of  the  Great  Eastern.  I  go  up 
the  bank  and  push  against  her  with  all  my  might, 
as  if  she  were  aground  on  the  slope.  She  turns 


28  SUMMER  REST. 

her  head  back  upon  me  with  a  look  which  says, 
"  Is  it  a  fly  you  are  trying  to  persuade  off  me  ? 
Thank  you  !  "  I  try  what  virtue  there  is  in 
stones,  like  the  old  man  in  the  spelling-book ;  she 
walks  leisurely  to  the  other  side  and  resumes  her 
craunching.  I  am  tempted  to  bang  her  faithful  old 
bones  with  the  knotted  head  of  my  pilgrim's  staff, 
but  never  yield  to  the  temptation,  and  we  grad 
ually  work  our  passage  home  in  very  good  humor 
with  each  other,  thinking  one  time  is  about  as 
good  as  another,  when  it  is  all  summer  evening. 

And  if  we  stroll  far  enough  down  the   sloping 
orchard,  where 

"Ripe  grasses  trammel  a  travelling  foot," 
we  come  out  upon  the  knoll  beyond  and  the  cow- 
path  under  it ;  and  the  pond  and  the  pine-trees  and 
the  swamp,  odorous  with  wild-honeysuckle,  azalia, 
which  shall  be  swamp -apples  in  their  season,  tender, 
rich  with  tropical  hints  ;  and  here  are  the  black 
berry  vines  smothering  the  gray  wall,  and  secretly 
ripening  the  pulpy  fruit  whose  saucy  black  beauty 
shall  soon  laugh  out  from  every  chink  and  crevice ; 
and  on  the  hillside  a  grove  of  oaks  dearer  than 
Dodona,  —  a  little  wood,  but  dense  and  deep 
enough  to  lose  yourself  in  as  it  creeps  up  and 
around  to  the  other  side  of  the  hill,  defying  winter 
and  the  north-wind  there,  here  welcoming  sum 
mer  and  the  south,  a  whole  choir  of  breezes  hum 
ming  through  the  tree-tops,  and  a  troop  of  fairies 
flinging  shadows  on  a  little  pool  at  the  foot  of  the 


ORCHARD   TALK.  29 

grove.  And  do  you  know  how  grasshoppers  grow  ? 
I  do,  for  I  have  seen  them.  Come  out  here  some 
warm  evening  and  you  will  see  little  clots  of 
foam  on  the  grass.  Stir  one  open,  and  all  covered 
up  inside  will  be  a  baby  grasshopper,  green  and 
delicate ;  and  that  is  all  I  know  about  it.  Down 
here  in  the  oak  wood  there  is  a  sunny  spot  where 
we  almost  always  find  ourselves  sooner  or  later. 
It  seems  somehow  as  if  the  Mays  and  Junes  distil 
a  more  subtile  essence  here  than  elsewhere.  The 
tenderness  of  the  one  and  the  fulness  of  the  other 
meet  and  melt  into  a  warmth  of  wooing,  into  a 
gracious  fervor  and  welcome,  which  there  is  neither 
wish  nor  will  to  resist.  The  songs  of  the  old  poets 
sing  themselves  through  these  shadowy  places. 
Life  is  a  sunny  south  sea,  that  buoys  you  and 
rocks  you  and  wraps  you  about  with  a  delicious 
rest.  All  sounds  of  the  world  without  come 
robbed  of  their  dissonance,  and  blend  into  a  low 
melody,  less  heard  than  felt.  To  Tennyson 

"  The  individual  withers,  and  the  world  is  more  and  more," 

but  here  the  world  is  far  off.  Its  sights  fade 
out  of  view  and  thought,  and  you  only  sit  among 
the  shadows,  recline  along  the  sward,  toying  with 
the  wild  columbines  and  the  geraniums  and  the 
rank  grasses,  and  all  the  spirit  of  the  woods 
breathes  into  the  very  penetralia  of  the  soul.  It 
seems  you  would  hardly  care  ever  to  hear  another 
voice  or  do  a  deed  again.  Passivity  is  so  much 


30  SUMMER  REST. 

better  than  activity.  Let  us  receive,  and  be  con 
tent  to  give  nothing  where  our  all  is  so  little. 
This  multiform  life,  gentle,  continuous,  harmonious, 
so  puts  to  shame  our  harsh,  crude  efforts.  The 
grace  of  the  woods  mocks  the  world's  awkward 

o 

gait.  There  was  a  man  once  planted  ("  Nam 
Polydorus  ego  !  "),  and  pious  ^Eneas  found  it  no 
laughing  matter  to  root  him  up.  I  wonder  if 
these  old  fables,  —  fables  of  Narcissus  and  Danae 
and  the  wondrous  loves  of  earth  and  heaven,  —  are 
not  the  graceful  Greek  way  of  draping  what  our 
harsh  Saxon  speech  lays  bare  in  the  skeletons 
of  science,  or  what  our  eyes,  that  love  less  these 
earth-forces,  have  as  yet  failed  to  discern. 

"  Danae  in  a  golden  tower, 
Where  no  love  was,  loved  a  shower." 

* 

More  precious  than  golden  showers  the  warm 
April  rains  that  descend  on  these  swells  and  dim 
ples  of  verdure,  and  precious  as  any  fabled  Perseus 
the  fruit  they  bear.  Is  it  hard  to  believe  that  one 
might  dwell  in  the  woods  away  from  men,  and 
live  so  deep  down  in  the  secret  of  the  forest,  of 
rock  and  tree  and  water-flow  and  fall,  that  their 
individualities  should  intermingle,  there  should  be 
a  kind  of  out-go  and  in-come,  so  that  one  should 
hardly  know  where  the  human  ended  and  the 
earth-born  began  ? 

There  is  a  real  and  wondrous  influence  astir  in 
that  world  which  we  call  nature,  whose  deathless 


ORCHARD   TALK.  31 

life  endures  spite  of  all  our  feeble  prating  about 
it.  But  prate  we  must,  for  puny  love  is  just  as 
exacting  towards  a  puny  soul  as  a  great  passion 
to  the  great.  The  bright-hearted  Greeks  have 
painted  and  sculptured  and  sung,  for  all  succeed 
ing  ages,  the  beauty  of  their  wave-washed  home. 
Every  grove  and  fountain,  vine-clad  hill,  mountain- 
pass  and  shady  valley  has  its  story  of  passion, 
of  struggle,  or  of  fate.  Here  a  hero  was  born, 
here  a  virgin  slain.  Green  islands  rise  from  the 
sea,  thick  studded  with  the  footprints  of  the  gods. 
Ears  that  never  heard  the  surf  washing  against 
a  foreign  shore  have  heard  the  thunders  of  Jove 
rolling  around  the  brow  of  Olympus ;  and  sit 
ting  on  a  pleasant  slope  in  this  young  Western 
world,  I  see  across  three  thousand  years  and 
twice  three  thousand  miles  the  smile  and  sparkle 
of  the  blue  ^Egean  Sea. 

The  Greeks  are  gone.  Gone  dryad  and  hama 
dryad,  nymph  and  naiad.  Gone  faun  and  satyr 
from  the  Latin  groves.  Gone  elf  and  fay  from 
the  sombre  northern  wilds.  Druids  no  longer 
deepen  the  gloom  of  the  awful  forest ;  the  tricksy 
fairies  have  ceased  their  dance,  and  there  is  no 
glitter  of  English  armor,  no  dart  of  daring  Eng 
lish  outlaw  gleaming  in  the  gay  greenwood.  But 
the  gay  greenwood  has  not  lost  its  spell ;  for  it  lay 
in  none  of  these.  Deeper  than  haunt  of  nyrnph 
or  fairy  is  the  secret  place  where  its  soul  abideth. 
Yon  cannot  linger  in  its  recesses  without  feeling 


32  SUMMER  REST. 

its  mystical  charm.  Rests  upon  you  a  calm  con 
tent.  Your  spirit  is  set  to  a  more  peaceful  mel 
ody.  You  lose  yourself  in  the  twitter  and  chirp 
and  whirr  of  the  unconscious  multitudes  around 
you.  Vexations,  pleasures,  hopes,  disappoint 
ments,  ambitions,  anxieties,  are  all  dissolved  in 
the  magic  alembic  which  distils  the  one  elixir 
peace.  Yesterday,  to-day,  and  to-morrow  are  but 
the  present  moment,  unending.  The 

"  Queen  and  Huntress  chaste  and  fair  " 

might  chase  her  flying  hart  past  your  hiding-place, 
Robert  of  Huntington  might  glide  from  behind 
a  tree,  bravely  bedight,  and  share  his  hard-fought 
gains  with  faithful  Little  John,  or  the  white  wings 
of  a  visitant  from  some  upper  world,  that  goes 
sailing  through  the  night,  might  wave  athwart 
your  dream,  and  you  would  feel  no  shock  and 
scarcely  a  surprise.  In  the  wide  world  none  know 
this  spot  but  the  birds  and  the  squirrels,  the  in 
sects,  the  wood-cutters,  and  just  ourselves.  Yet 
here  the  vintage  pours  its  choicest  wine.  Sweet, 
wise  words  spoken  long,  long  ago  are  woven  in 
with  the  wild  vine's  teasing  tangle.  Minstrel  and 
troubadour  over  the  sea,  dead  now  these  many 
generations,  live  again  in  the 

"  Lisp  of  leaves  and  ripple  of  rain." 

Dust  is  the  hand  that  wrote,  dust  the  lips  that 
sung,  but,  vivid  with  the  vigor  of  immortals,  the 


ORCHARD   TALK.  33 

spirit  of  the  past  dwells  forevermore  in  these 
whispering  woods,  and,  loving  the  greenwood  and 
the  May  of  its  own  lusty  time,  scorns  not  to  light 
up  a  wild  American  jungle  with  the  light  of  other 
days. 

And  over  all  this  sunny  scene  broods  the  spirit 
of  a  deeper  past.  Far  back  in  the  twilight  of 
eternity,  what  life  was  it  that  lounged  through  the 
lazy  centuries  ?  What  rank  trees,  never  blossom 
ing,  yawned  up  to  the  dun  skies  and  stretched 
their  indolent  arms  in  the  hot  moist  air?  What 
slow-souled  lizards,  huge  and  harmless,  trailed 
their  giant  length  through  the  succulent  thickets  ? 
Great  solemn  eyes  that  smiled  upon  no  flower, 
heavy  ears  that  heard  no  voice  of  bird  nor  any 
music  softer  than  the  swirl  of  the  restless  sea,  or 
the  moans  of  the  laboring  land,  —  wild  monsters 
paddling  through  the  warm  dark  waters,  or  wad 
dling  over  the  jellied  earth,  —  the  treacherous 
quicksands  engulfed  them,  the  pit  opened  her 
mouth  and  swallowed  them ;  but  their  story  is  not 
untold.  The  molten  continent  took  it  and  de 
clared  it  to  the  listening  ages.  The  listening  ages 
heard  it  and  graved  it  on  the  rock  forever.  A 
little  cloud  sailed  across  the  sky,  flung  its  largess 
to  the  ground,  and  went  on  its  way  most  evan 
escent  of  all  the  children  of  Nature.  And  the 
perpetual  hills  have  no  surer  record  to-day  than 
that  scurrying  cloud  that  hurled  its  drops  slant 
wise  on  the  mud  a  million  years  ago. 

2*  C 


A    PROSE    HENRIADE. 


OT  only  is  the  time  of  the  singing  of 
birds  come,  but  the  time  of  the  cack 
ling  of  homely,  honest  barn-yard  fowls, 
that  have  never  had  justice  done  them. 
Why  do  we  extol  foreign  growths  and  neglect 
the  children  of  the  soil  ?  Where  is  there  a  more 
magnificent  bird  than  the  Rooster  ?  What  a  lofty 
air !  What  a  spirited  pose  of  the  head  !  Note  his 
elaborately  scalloped  comb,  his  stately  steppings, 
the  lithe,  quick,  graceful  motions  of  his  arching 
neck.  Mark  his  brilliant  plumage,  smooth  and 
lustrous  as  satin,  soft  as  floss  silk.  What  necklace 
of  a  duchess  ever  surpassed  in  beauty  the  circles 
of  feathers  which  he  wears,  —  layer  shooting  over 
layer,  up  and  down,  hither  and  thither,  an  amber 
waterfall,  swift  and  soundless  as  the  light,  but 
never  disturbing  the  matchless  order  of  his  array  ? 
What  plume  from  African  deserts  can  rival  the 
rich  hues,  the  graceful  curves,  and  the  palm-like 
erectness  of  his  tail  ?  All  his  colors  are  tropical. 
With  every  quick  motion  the  tints  change  as  in 


A   PROSE  HENRIADE.  35 

a  prism,  and  each  tint  is  more  splendid  than  the 
last :  green  more  beautiful  than  any  green,  .ex 
cept  that  of  a  duck's  neck  ;  brown  infiltrated 
with  gold,  and  ranging  through  the  whole  gamut 
of  its  possibilities.  (I  am  not  sure  that  this  last  is 
correct  in  point  of  expression,  but  it  is  correct  in 
point  of  sense,  as  any  one  who  ever  saw  a  red 
rooster  will  bear  witness.) 

Hens  are  not  intrinsically  handsome,  but  they 
abundantly  prove  the  truth  of  the  old  adage, 
"  Handsome  is  that  handsome  does."  Lord 
Kaimes  describes  one  kind  of  beauty  as  that 
founded  on  the  relations  of  objects.  And  surely 
the  relation  of  a  hen  to  a  dozen  white,  fresh 
eggs,  and  the  relation  of  those  eggs  to  puddings 
and  custards,  and  the  twenty-five  or  fifty  cents 
which  they  can  have  for  the  asking,  make  even  an 
ungainly  hen,  like  many  heroines  in  novels,  "  not 
beautiful,  but  Tery  interesting."  u  Twenty  thou 
sand  dollars,"  said  a  connoisseur  in  such  matters, 
"  is  a  handsome  feature  in  any  lady's  face."  And 
the  "  cut-cut-cut-ca-D-A-H-cut  "  of  a  hen,  whose 
word  is  as  good  as  her  bond  for  an  egg  a  day,  is  a 
handsome  feather  in  any  bird's  cap.  Once,  how 
ever,  this  trumpet  of  victory  deceived  me,  though 
by  no  fault  of  the  hen.  I  heard  it  sounding  lust 
ily,  and  I  ransacked  the  barn  on  tiptoe  to  discover 
the  new-made  nest  and  the  exultant  mater-famili- 
as.  But  instead  of  a  white  old  hen  with  yellow 
legs,  who  had  laid  her  master  many  eggs,  there,  on 


36  SUMMER  REST. 

a  barrel,  stood  brave  Chanticleer,  cackling  away  for 
dear  life,  —  Hercules  holding  the  distaff  among  his 
Omphales  !  Now,  —  for  there  are  many  things  to 
be  learned  from  hens,  —  mark  the  injustice  of  the 
tyrant  man.  From  time  immemorial,  girls,  —  at 
least  country  girls,  —  have  been  taught  that 

"  A  whistling  girl  and  a  crowing  hen 
Always  come  to  some  bad  end  "  : 

but  not  a  word  is  said  about  a  cackling  rooster ! 

O 

Worse  still,  a  crowing  hen  is  so  rare  a  thing  that 
its  very  existence  is  problematical.  I  never  heard 
of  one  out  of  that  couplet.  I  have  made  diligent 
inquiry,  but  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any 
person  who  had  heard,  or  who  had  ever  seen  or 
heard  of  any  one  who  had  heard,  a  crowing  hen. 
But  these  very  hands  have  fed,  these  very  eyes 
seen,  and  these  ears  heard  a  cackling  rooster ! 
Where  is  manly  impartiality,  not  to  say  chivalry  ? 
Why  do  men  overlook  the  crying  sins  of  their 
own  sex,  and  expend  all  their  energies  in  attempt 
ing  to  eradicate  sins  which  never  existed  in  the 
other  ? 

I  have  lived  among  hens  lately,  and  I  know  all 
about  them.  They  are  just  like  people.  Not  a 
few  only,  but  the  whole  human  race,  are  chicken- 
hearted. 

Hens  are  fond  of  little  mysteries.  With  tons 
of  hay  at  their  disposal,  they  will  steal  a  nest  in 
a  discarded  feeding-trough.  With  nobody  to  har 
bor  an  evil  thought  against  them,  they  will  hide 


A  PROSE  HENRIADE.  37 

under  the  corn-stalks  as  carefully  as  if  a  sheriff 
were  on  their  track.  They  will  not  go  to  their 
nests  while  you  are  about,  but  tarry  midway  and 
meditate  profoundly  on  fixed  fate,  free-will,  fore 
knowledge  absolute,  till  you  are  tired  of  watching 
and  waiting,  and  withdraw.  —  No,  you  did  not 
know  it  all  before.  The  world  is  in  a  state  of 
Cimmerian  darkness  regarding  hens.  There  were 
never  any  chickens  hatched  till  three  weeks  from 
a  week  before  Fast  Day.  How  should  you,  my 
readers,  know  anything  about  them  ?  Be  docile, 
and  I  will  enlighten  you. 

Hens  must  have  a  depression  where  the  bump 
of  locality  should  be,  for  they  have  no  manner 
of  tenderness  for  old  haunts.  "  Where  are  the 
birds  in  last  year's  nests?"  queries  the  poet ;  but 
he  might  have  asked  quite  as  pertinently,  "  Where 
are  the  birds  in  last  month's  nests  ?  "  Echo,  if 
she  were  at  all  familiar  with  the  subject,  would 
reply,  "  The  birds  are  here,  but  where  are  the 
nests  ? "  Hens  very  sensibly  decide  that  it  is 
easier  to  build  a  new  house  than  to  keep  the  old 
one  in  order ;  and  having  laid  one  round  of  eggs, 
off  they  go  to  erect,  or  rather  to  excavate,  another 
dwelling.  You  have  scarcely  learned  the  way  to 
their  nook  above  the  great  beam  when  it  is  aban 
doned,  and  they  betake  themselves  to  a  hole  at 
the  very  bottom  of  the  haymow.  I  wish  I  could 
tell  you  a  story  about  a  Hebrew  prophet  crawling 
under  a  barn  after  hens'  eggs,  and  crawling  out 


38  SUMMER   REST. 

again  from  the  musty  darkness  into  sweet  light 
with  his  clothes  full  of  cobwebs,  his  eyes  full  of 
dust,  his  hands  full  of  eggs,  to  find  himself  wink 
ing  and  blinking  in  the  midst  of  a  party  of  ladies 
and  gentlemen  who  had  come  lion-hunting  from 
a  farre  countrie.  I  cannot  tell  you,  because  it 
would  be  a  breach  of  confidence ;  but  I  am  going 
to  edit  my  Sheikh's  Life  and  Letters,  if  I  live 
long  enough,  and  he  does  not  live  too  long,  and 
then  you  shall  have  the  whole  story. 

Another  very  singular  habit  hens  have,  —  that 
of  dusting  themselves.  They  do  not  seem  to  care 
for  bathing,  like  canary-birds ;  but  in  warm  after 
noons,  when  they  have  eaten  their  fill,  they  like 
to  stroll  into  the  highway,  where  the  dust  lies 
ankle-deep  in  heaps  and  ridges,  and  settle  down 
and  stir  and  burrow  in  it  till  it  has  penetrated 
through  all  their  inmost  feathers,  and  so  filled 
them,  that,  when  they  arise  and  shake  themselves, 
they  stand  in  a  cloud  of  dust.  I  do  not  like  this 
habit  in  the  hens  ;  yet  I  observe  how  a  corre 
spondence  exists  in  all  the  Vertebrata  ;  for  do  not 
fine  ladies  similarly  dust  themselves  ?  They  do 
not,  indeed,  sit  in  the  road  a  la  Turque.  They 
box  up  the  dust,  and  take  it  to  their  dressing- 
rooms,  and,  because  Nature  has  not  provided  them 
with  feathers,  ingenuity  more  than  supplies  the 
deficiency  with  the  softest  of  white  down  brushes, 
that  harbor  and  convey  the  coveted  dust.  O  I 
doubt  not  through  the  races  one  resembling  pur- 


A   PROSE  HENRI ADE.  39 

pose  runs  ;  and  many  a  stately  matron  and  many 
a  lovely  maiden  might  truly  say  unto  the  hen, 
4'  Thou  art  my  sister." 

Did  I  say  I  knew  all  about  hens  ?  The  half 
was  not  told  you ;  for  I  am  wise  in  chickens  too. 
I  know  the  tribe  from  "  egg  to  bird,"  as  the  coun 
try  people  say,  when  they  wish  to  express  the 
most  radical,  sweeping  acquaintance  with  any  sub 
ject,  —  a  phrase,  by  the  way,  whose  felicity  is 
hardly  to  be  comprehended  till  experience  has 
unfolded  its  meaning. 

When  hens  have  laid  a  certain  number  of  eggs, 
—  twelve  or  twenty,  —  they  evince  a  strong  dis 
position,  I  might  almost  say  a  determination,  to 
sit.*  In  every  such  case,  it  is  plain  that  they 
ought  to  be  allowed  to  sit.  It  is  a  violation  of 
nature  to  souse  them  in  cold  water  in  order  to 
make  them  change  their  minds  ;  and  Marcus  An 
toninus  tell  us  that  nothing  is  evil  which  is  accord 
ing  to  nature.  But  people  want  eggs,  and  they 
do  not  care  for  nature  ;  and  the  consequence  is, 
that  hens  are  obliged  to  undergo  "  heroic  treat 
ment  "  of  various  kinds.  Sometimes  it  is  the  cold 
bath  ;  sometimes  it  is  the  hospital.  One  I  tied  to 
the  bottom  of  one  of  the  standards  ;  but,  eager 
to  escape,  and  ignorant  of  the  qualities  of  cord, 

*  I  say  sit,  out  of  regard  to  the  proprieties  of  the  occasion ;  but 
I  do  not  expose  myself  to  ridicule  by  going  about  among  the 
neighbors  and  talking  of  a  sitting  hen  !  Everywhere  but  in  print 
hens  set. 


40  SUMMER   REST. 

she  flew  up  over  the  top  rail,  and,  the  next 
time  I  entered  the  barn,  presented  the  unpleasing 
spectacle  of  a  dignified  and  deliberate  fowl  hang 
ing  in  mid-air  by  one  leg.  Greatly  alarmed,  I 
hurried  her  down.  Life  was  not  extinct,  except 
in  that  leg.  I  rubbed  it  tenderly  till  warmth  was 
restored,  and  then  it  grew  so  hot  that  I  feared 
inflammation  would  set  in,  and  made  local  applica 
tions  to  check  the  tendency,  wondering  in  my 
own  mind  whether,  in  case  worse  should  come  to 
worst,  she  could  get  on  at  all  with  a  Palmer  leg. 
The  next  morning  the  question  became  unneces 
sary,  as  she  walked  quite  well  with  her  own. 
The  remaining  hens  were  put  in  hospital  till  they 
signified  a  willingness  to  resume  their  former  prof 
itable  habits,  —  except  one  who  was  arbitrarily 
chosen  to  be  foster-mother  of  the  future  brood. 
Fifteen  eggs,  fair  and  fresh,  reserved  for  the  pur 
pose,  I  counted  out  and  put  into  her  nest ;  and 
there  she  sat  day  after  day  and  all  day  long,  with 
a  quietness,  a  silent,  patient  persistence,  which  I 
admired,  but  could  not  in  the  least  imitate  ;  for 
I  kept  continually  prying  her  up  to  see  how 
matters  fared.  Many  hens  would  have  resented 
so  much  interference,  but  she  knew  it  was  sym 
pathy,  and  not  malice  ;  besides,  she  was  very  good- 
natured,  and  so  was  I,  and  we  stood  on  the  best 
possible  footing  towards  each  other.  As  we  say 
in  the  country,  "  A  hen's  time  is  not  much  to 
her  "  ;  and  in  this  case  the  opinion  was  certainly 
correct. 


A   PROSE  HENRIADE.  41 

One  morning  I  thought  I  heard  a  faint  noise. 
Turning  out  the  good  old  creature,  that  I  might 
take  an  observation,  eggs  still,  and  no  chickens, 
were  discernible ;  but  the  tiniest  little,  silvery,  sun 
ny-hearted  chirp  that  you  ever  heard,  inside  the 
eggs,  and  a  little,  tender  pecking  from  every  im 
prisoned  chick,  standing  at  his  crystal  door,  and 
with  his  faint,  fairy  tap,  tap,  tap,  craving  admis 
sion  into  the  great  world.  Never  can  I  forget  or 
describe  the  sensations  of  that  moment ;  and,  as 
promise  rapidly  culminated  in  performance,  —  as 
the  eggs  ceased  to  be  eggs,  and  analyzed  them 
selves  into  shattered  shells  and  chirping  chickens, 
—  it  seemed  as  if  I  had  been  transported  back  to 
the  beginning  of  creation.  Right  before  my  eyes 
I  saw,  in  my  hands  I  held,  the  mystery  of  life. 
These  eggs,  that  had  been  laid  under  my  very 
eyes  as  it  were,  that  I  had  at  least  hunted  and 
found  and  confiscated  and  restored,  —  these  eggs 
that  I  had  broken  and  eaten  a  thousand  times, 
and  learned  of  a  surety  to  be  nothing  but  eggs,  — 
were  before  me  now ;  and,  lo,  they  were  eyes 
and  feathers  and  bill  and  claws !  Yes,  little  puff- 
ball,  I  saw  you  when  you  were  hard  and  cold  and 
had  no  more  life  than  a  Lima  bean.  I  might 

O 

have  scrambled  you,  or  boiled  you,  or  made  a 
pasch-egg  of  you,  and  you  would  not  have  known 
that  anything  was  happening.  If  you  had  been 
cooked  then,  you  would  have  been  only  an  omelet ; 
now  you  may  be  a  fricassee.  As  I  looked  at  the 


42  SUMMER  REST. 

nest,  so  lately  full  only  of  white  quiet,  now  swarm 
ing  with   downy   life,   and   vocal   with   low,   soft 
music, 

"  I  felt  a  newer  life  in  every  gale." 

O,  no  one  can  tell,  till  he  has  chickens  of  his  own, 
what  delicious  emotions  are  stirred  in  the  heart  by 
their  downy,  appealing  tenderness  ! 

Swarming,  however,  as  the  nest  seemed,  it  soon 
transpired  that  only  seven  chickens  had  transpired. 
Eight  eggs  still  maintained  their  integrity.  I  re 
marked  to  the  hen,  that  she  would  better  keep 
on  awhile  longer,  and  I  would  take  the  seven  into 
the  house,  and  provide  for  them.  She  assented, 
having,  justly  enough,  all  confidence  in  my  saga 
city;  and  I  put  them  into  a  warm  old  worsted 
hood,  and  brought  them  into  the  house.  But  the 
hood  was  not  a  hen,  though  it  was  tucked  around 
them  almost  to  the  point  of  suffocation  ;  and  they 
filled  the  house  with  dolorous  cries, —  uyopping  " 
it  is  called  in  the  rural  districts.  Nothing  would 
soothe  them  but  to  be  cuddled  together  in  some 
body's  lap,  and  brooded  with  somebody's  hand. 
Then  their  shrill,  piercing  shrieks  would  die  away 
into  a  contented  chirp  of  heartfelt  satisfaction.  I 
took  a  world  of  comfort  in  those  chickens,  — it  is  so 
pleasant  to  feel  that  you  are  really  making  sentient 
beings  happy.  The  tiny  things  grew  so  familiar 
and  fond  in  a  few  hours  that  they  could  hardly  tell 
which  was  which,  —  I  or  the  hen.  I  could  do 


A   PROSE  HENRIADE.  43 

everything  for  them  but  cluck.  I  tried  that,  but 
the  experiment  was  not  satisfactory  to  myself, 
and  as  regards  deceiving  the  chicks  it  was  a  dead 
failure ;  otherwise  they  accepted  the  situation 
gracefully.  They  would  all  fall  asleep  in  a  soft, 
stirring  lump  for  five  seconds,  and  then*  rouse  up, 
with  no  apparent  cause,  but  as  suddenly  and  simul 
taneously  as  if  the  drum  had  beat  a  reveille,  and 
go  foraging  about  in  the  most  enterprising  manner. 
One  would  snap  at  a  ring,  under  the  impression 
that  it  was  petrified  dough,  I  suppose  ;  and  all  the 
rest  would  rush  up  determinedly  to  secure  a  share 
in  the  prize.  Next  they  would  pounce  upon  a  but 
ton,  evidently  thinking  it  curd  ;  and  though  they 
must  have  concluded,  after  a  while,  that  it  was  the 
hardest  kind  of  coagulated  milk  on  record,  they 
were  not  restrained  from  renewing  the  attack  in 
squads  at  irregular  intervals.  When  they  first 
broke  camp,  we  put  soaked  and  sweetened  cracker 
into  their  bills ;  but  they  developed  such  an  appe 
tite,  that,  in  view  of  the  high  price  of  sugar,  we 
cut  off  their  allowance,  and  economized  on  Indian 
meal  and  bread-water.  Every  night  they  went 
to  the  hen,  and  every  morning  they  came  in  to 
me  ;  and  still  Dame  Partlet  sat  with  stolid  pa 
tience,  and  still  eight  eggs  remained.  I  con 
cluded,  at  length,  to  let  the  eggs  take  their  chance 
with  another  hen,  and  restore  the  first  to  freedom 
and  her  chickens.  But  just  as  I  was  about  to 
commence  operations,  some  one  announced,  that, 


44  SUMMER  REST. 

if  eggs  are  inverted  during  the  process  of  incuba 
tion,  the  chickens  from  them  will  be  crazy.  Ap 
palled  at  the  thought  of  a  brood  of  chickens 
laboring  under  an  aberration  of  mind,  vet  fired 
with  the  love  of  scientific  investigation,  I  inverted 
one  by  way  of  experiment,  and  placed  it  in  another 
nest.  The  next  morning,  when  I  entered  the 
barn,  Biddy  stretched  out  her  neck,  and  declared 
that  there  was  no  use  in  waiting  any  longer,  and 
she  was  determined  to  leave  the  place,  which  she 
accordingly  did,  discovering,  to  my  surprise,  two 
little  -dead,  crushed,  flattened  chickens.  Poor 
things !  I  coaxed  them  on  a  shingle,  and  took 
them  into  the  house  to  show  to  a  person  whose 
name  I  have  often  had  occasion  to  mention,  and 
who,  in  all  experimental  matters,  considers  my 
testimony  good  for  nothing  without  the  strongest 
corroborative  evidence.  Notice  now  the  unreason 
ing  obstinacy  with  which  people  will  cling  to  their 
prejudices  in  the  face  of  the  most  palpable  oppos 
ing  facts. 

"  Where  did  these  come  from  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Probably  the  hen  trod  on  them  and  killed 
them*,"  he  said. 

"  But  there  were  seven  whole  eggs  remaining, 
and  the  insane  one  was  in  another  nest." 

"  Well,  he  supposed  some  other  hen  might  have 
laid  in  the  nest  after  the  first  had  begun  to  sit. 
Hens  often  did  so." 

"  No,  for  I  had  counted  the  eggs  every  day." 


A   PROSE  HEXRIADE.  45 

Here,  then,  was  an  equation  to  be  produced 
between  fifteen  original  eggs  on  one  side,  and 
seven  whole  eggs,  seven  live  chickens,  two  dead 
chickens,  and  another  egg  on  the  other.  My 
theory  was,  that  two  of  the  eggs  contained  twins. 

"  But  no,"  says  Halicarnassus,  —  "  such  a  thing 
was  never  known  as  two  live  chickens  from  one 

egg-" 

"  But  these  were  dead  chickens/'  I  affirmed. 

"  But  they  were  alive  when  they  pecked  out. 
They  could  not  break  the  shell  when  they  were 
dead." 

"  But  the  two  dead  chickens  may  have  been  in 
the  same  shell  with  two  live  ones,  and,  when  the 
live  ones  broke  the  shell,  the  dead  ones  dropped 
out." 

"  Nonsense ! " 

"  But  here  are  the  facts,  Mr.  Gradgrind,  — 
seven  live  chickens,  two  dead  chickens,  seven 
whole  eggs,  and  another  egg  to  be  accounted  for, 
and  only  fifteen  eggs  to  account  for  them." 

Yet,  as  if  a  thing  that  never  happened  on  our 
farm  is  a  thing  that  never  can  happen,  oblivious 
of  the  fact  that  "a  pair  of  chickens  "  is  a  common 
phrase  enough,  —  simply  because  a  man  never  saw 
twin  chickens,  he  maintains  that  there  cannot  be 
any  such  thing  as  twin  chickens.  This,  too,  in 
spite  of  one  egg  I  brought  in  large  enough  to 
hold  a  brood  of  chickens.  In  fact,  it  does  not 
look  like  an  egg ;  it  looks  like  the  keel  of  a  man- 
of-war. 


46  SUMMER  REST. 

The  problem  remains  unsolved.  But  never, 
while  I  remember  my  addition  table,  can  you 
make  me  believe  that  seven  whole —  But  the 
individual  mentioned  above  is  so  sore  on  this 
point,  that  the  moment  I  get  thus  far  he  leaves 
the  room,  and  my  equation  remains  unstated. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  human  nature  in  hens. 
They  have  the  same  qualities  that  people  have, 
but  unmodified.  A  human  mother  loves  her  chil 
dren,  but  she  is  restrained  by  a  sense  of  propriety 
from  tearing  other  mothers'  children  in  pieces. 
A  hen  has  no  such  checks ;  her  motherhood  exists 
without  any  qualification.  Her  intense  love  for 
her  own  brood  is  softened  by  no  social  requirements. 
If  a  poor  lost  waif  from  another  coop  strays  into 
her  realm,  no  pity,  no  sympathy  springing  from  the 
thought  of  her  own  offspring,  moves  her  to  kind 
ness  ;  but  she  goes  at  it  with  a  demoniac  fury, 
and  would  peck  its  little  life  out,  if  fear  did  not 
lend  it  wings.  She  has  a  self-abnegation  as  great 
as  that  of  human  mothers.  Her  voracity  and 
timidity  disappear.  She  goes  almost  without  food 
herself,  that  her  chicks  may  eat.  She  scatters 
the  dough  about  with  her  own  bill,  that  it  may 
be  accessible  to  the  little  bills,  or,  perhaps,  to 
teach  them  how  to  work.  The  wire-worms,  the 
bugs,  the  flies,  all  the  choice  little  tidbits  that  her 
soul  loves,  she  divides  for  her  chicks,  reserving 
not  a  morsel  for  herself.  All  their  gambols  and 
pranks  and  wild  ways  she  bears  with  untiring 


A   PROSE  HENRIADE.  47 

patience.  They  hop  up  by  twos  and  threes  on 
her  back.  They  peck  at  her  bill.  One  saucy 
little  imp  actually  jumped  up  and  caught  hold 
of  the  little  red  lappet  above  her  beak,  and,  hang 
ing  to  it,  swung  to  and  fro  half  a  dozen  times  ; 
and  she  was  evidently  only  amused,  and  reckoned 
it  a  mark  of  precocity. 

Yet,  with  all  her  intense,  absorbing  parental 
love,  the  hen  has  very  serious  deficiencies,  —  de 
ficiencies  occasioned  by  the  same  lack  of  modifica 
tion  which  I  have  before  mentioned.  Devoted  to 
her  little  ones,  she  will  scratch  vigorously  and  un 
tiringly  to  provide  them  food,  yet  fails  to  remem 
ber  that  they  do  not  stand  before  her  in  a  straight 
line  out  of  harm's  way,  but  are  hovering  around 
her  on  all  sides  in  a  dangerous  proximity.  Like 
the  poet,  she  looks  not  forward  nor  behind.  If 
they  are  .  beyond  reach,  very  well ;  if  they  are 
not,  all  the  same  ;  scratch,  scratch,  scratch  in  the 
soil  goes  her  great,  strong,  horny  claw,  and  up 
flies  a  cloud  of  dust,  and  away  goes  a  poor  un 
fortunate,  whirling  involuntary  somersets  through 
the  air  without  the  least  warning.  She  is  a  living 
monument  of  the  mischief  that  may  be  done  by 
giving  undue  prominence  to  one  idea.  I  only 
wonder  that  so  few  broken  heads  and  dislocated 
joints  bear  witness  to  the  falseness  of  such  phi 
losophy.  I  am  quite  sure  that  if  /  should  give 
the  chickens  such  merciless  impulses,  they  would 
not  recover  from  the  effects  so  speedily.  Unlike 


48  SUMMER  REST. 

human  mothers,  too,  she  has  no  especial  tender 
ness  for  invalids.  She  makes  arrangements  only 
for  a  healthy  family.  If  a  pair  of  tiny  wings 
droop,  and  a  pair  of  tiny  legs  falter,  so  much  the 
worse  for  the  unlucky  owner  ;  but  not  one  journey 
the  less  does  Mother  Hen  take.  She  is  the  very 
soul  of  impartiality ;  but  there  is  no  cosseting. 
Sick  or  well,  chick  must  run  with  the  others,  or 
be  left  behind.  Run  they  do,  with  a  remarkable 
uniformity.  I  marvel  to  see  the  perfect  under 
standing  among  them  all.  Obedience  is  absolute 
on  the  one  side,  and  control  on  the  other,  and 
without  a  single  harsh  measure.  It  is  pure  Qua 
ker  discipline,  simple  moral  suasion.  The  specks 
understand  her  every  word,  and  so  do  I  —  almost. 
When  she  is  stepping  about  in  a  general  way,  — 
and  hens  always  step,  —  she  has  simply  a  motherly 
sort  of  cluck,  that  is  but  a  general  expression  of 
affection  and  oversight.  But  the  moment  she 
finds  a  worm  or  a  crumb  or  a  splash  of  dough, 
the  note  changes  into  a  quick,  eager  "  Here ! 
here !  here  !  "  and  away  rushes  the  brood  pell- 
mell  and  topsy-turvy.  If  a  stray  cat  approaches, 
or  danger  in  any  form,  her  defiant,  menacing 
"  C-r-r-r-r  !  "  shows  her  anger  and  alarm. 

See  how,  in  Bedford  jail,  John  Bunyan  turned 
to  good  account  the  lessons  learned  in  barn-yards. 
"  4  Yet  again,'  said  he,  '  observe  and  look.'  So 
they  gave  heed  and  perceived  that  the  hen  did 
walk  in  a  fourfold  method  towards  her  chickens. 


A  PROSE  HENRI ADE.  49 

1.  She  had  a  common  call,  and  that  she  hath  all 
day  long ;  2.  She  had  a  special  call,  and  that  she 
had  but  sometimes;  3.  She  had  a  brooding  note; 
and,  4.  She  had  an  outcry.  4  Now,'  said  he, 
4  compare  this  hen  to  your  king,  and  these  chick 
ens  to  his  obedient  ones.  For,  answerable  to  her, 
himself  has  his  methods  which  he  walketh  in 
towards  his  people :  by  his  common  call  he  gives 
nothing ;  by  his  special  call  he  always  has  some 
thing  to  give ;  he  has  also  a  brooding  voice  for 
them  that  are  under  his  wing ;  and  he  has  an 
outcry  to  give  the  alarm  when  he  seeth  the  enemy 
come.  I  chose,  my  darlings,  to  lead  you  into 
the  room  where  such  things  are,  because  you  are 
women,  and  they  are  easy  for  you.' '  Kind  Mr. 
Interpreter ! 

To  personal  fear,  as  I  have  intimated,  the  hen- 
mother  is  a  stranger ;  but  her  power  is  not  always 
equal  to  her  pluck.  One  week  ago  this  very  day, 
—  ah  me  !  this  very  hour,  —  the  cat  ran  by  the 
window  with  a  chicken  in  her  mouth.  Cats  are 
a  separate  feature  in  country  establishments.  In 
the  city  I  have  understood  them  to  lead  a  no 
madic,  disturbed,  and  somewhat  shabby  life.  In 
the  country  they  attach  themselves  to  special  locali 
ties  and  prey  upon  the  human  race.  We  have 
three  steady  and  several  occasional  cats  quartered 
upon  us.  One  was  retained  for  the  name  of  the 
thing,  —  called  derivatively  Maltesa,  and  Molly 
"  for  short."  One  was  adopted  for  charity,  —  a 


~.<  fY  J 

^uk  y 


50  SUMMER  REST. 

hideous,  saffron-hued,  forlorn  little  wretch,  left 
behind  by  a  Celtic  family,  called,  from  its  color, 
Aurora,  contracted  into  Roiy  O'More.  She  had 
a  narrow  escape  one  day  last  winter.  I  happened 
to  pass  through  the  kitchen  in  the  afternoon  and 
detected  her  taking  an  after-dinner  nap  in  the 
stove-oven,  lured  evidently  by  the  genial  warmth 
of  the  fading  fire.  I  know  it  was  not  exactly  a 
proper  place  for  a  cat,  but  she  looked  so  cunning 
and  comfortable,  I  had  not  the  heart  to  disturb 
her,  and,  not  disturbing  her,  there  was  no  harm  in 
increasing  her  comfort,  so  I  shut  the  oven  door 
to  retain  the  heat  as  long  as  possible.  At  dusk, 
I  went  to  give  her  her  supper  and  send  her  to 
bed  in  the  barn  as  usual,  but  she  did  not  make 
her  appearance.  Forgetting  the  episode  of  the 
oven  I  called  at  all  the  doors,  but  no  kitty  re 
sponded,  and  as  she  was  a  cat  of  an  eminently 
social  turn  of  mind,  I  concluded  she  was  visiting 
the  neighbors  and  gave  her  no  further  thought. 
Next  morning  a  fine  fire  was  built  and  breakfast 
preparations  were  going  on  merrily  when  a  stifled 
"  mew  "  began  to  be  heard.  There  was  another 
search  in  closet  and  cupboard  to  no  purpose,  when 
of  a  sudden  my  wits  came  back  to  me.  I  flung 
open  the  oven  door  and  out  leaped  kitty,  out  and 
out  and  never  stopped  till  she  had  buried  herself 
in  a  snow-bank.  I  was  very  sorry,  and  consoled 
her  with  brimming  bowls  that  day ;  but  apart 
from  the  slight  discomfort  of  the  process,  I  never 


A   PROSE  HENRI ADE.  51 

could  see  that  her  baking  did  her  the  least  harm. 
The  third  was  a  fierce  black-and-white  unnamed 
wild  creature,  of  whom  one  never  got  more  than 
a  glimpse  in  her  savage  flight.  Cats  are  tolerated 
here  from  a  tradition  that  they  catch  rats  and 
mice,  but  they  do  not.  We  catch  the  mice  our 
selves  and  put  them  in  a  barrel,  and  put  the  cat  in 
after  them ;  and  then  she  is  frightened  out  of  her 
wits.  As  for  rats,  they  will  gather  wherever  corn 
and  potatoes  congregate,  cats  or  no  cats.  It  is 
said  in  the  country,  that,  if  you  write  a  polite 
letter  to  rats,  asking  them  to  go  away,  they  will 
go.  I  received  my  information  from  one  who  had 
tried  the  experiment,  or  known  it  to  be  tried,  with 
great  success.  Standing  ready  always  to  write  a 
letter  on  the  slightest  provocation,  you  may  be 
sure  I  did  not  neglect  so  good  an  opportunity. 
The  letter  acknowledged  their  skill  and  sagacity, 
applauded  their  valor  and  their  perseverance,  but 
stated,  that,  in  the  present  scarcity  of  labor,  the 
resident  family  were  not  able  to  provide  more 
supplies  than  were  necessary  for  their  own  im 
mediate  use  and  for  that  of  our  brave  soldiers, 
and  they  must  therefore  beg  the  Messrs.  Rats  to 
leave  their  country  for  their  country's  good.  It 
was  laid  on  the  potato-chest,  and  I  have  never 
seen  a  rat  since  ! 

Short  colloquy  between  the  principal  actors  in 
this  drama :  — 

H.  Had  you  ever  seen  one  before  ? 


52  SUMMER  REST. 

I.  Well,  —  perhaps,  —  no  ! 

While  I  have  been  penning  this  quadrupedic 
episode,  you  may  imagine  Molly,  formerly  Mal- 
tesa,  as  Kinglake  would  say,  bearing  off  the 
chicken  in  triumph  to  her  domicile.  But  the 
alarm  is  given,  and  the  whole  plantation  turns 
out  to  rescue  the  victim  or  perish  in  the  attempt. 
Molly  takes  refuge  in  a  sleigh,  but  is  ignominiously 
ejected.  She  rushes  with  great  leaps  under  the 
corn-barn,  and  defies  us  all  to  follow  her.  But 
she  does  not  know  that  in  a  contest  strategy  may 
be  an  overmatch  for  swiftness.  She  is  familiar 
with  the  sheltering  power  of  the  elevated  corn- 
barn,  but  she  never  conjectures  to  what  base  uses 
a  clothes-pole  may  come,  until  one  plunges  into 
her  sides.  As  she  is  not  a  St.  Medard  Convul- 
sionist,  she  does  not  like  it,  but  strikes  a  bee-line 
for  the  piazza,  and  rushes  through  the  lattice-work 
into  the  darkness  underneath.  We  stoop  to  con 
quer,  and  she  hurls  Greek  fire  at  us  from  her 
wrathful  eyes,  but  cannot  stand  against  a  reinforce 
ment  of  poles  which  vex  her  soul.  With  teeth 
still  fastened  upon  her  now  unconscious  victim, 
she  leaves  her  place  of  refuge,  which  indeed  is 
no  refuge  for  her,  and  gallops  through  the  yard 
and  across  the  field ;  but  an  unseen  column  has 
flanked  her,  and  she  turns  back  only  to  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  main  army,  —  too  late,  alas !  for 
the  tender  chick,  who  has  picked  his  last  worm, 
and  will  never  chirp  again.  But  his  death  is 


A  PROSE  HENRIADE.  53 

speedily  avenged.  Within  the  space  of  three  days, 
Molly,  formerly  Maltesa,  is  taken  into  custody, 
tried,  convicted,  sentenced,  committed  to  prison  in 
an  old  wagon-box,  and  transported  to  Botany  Bay  ; 
greatly  to  the  delight  of  Rory  O'More,  formerly 
Aurora,  who,  in  the  presence  of  her  overgrown 
contemporary,  was  never  suffered  to  call  her  soul 
her  own,  much  less  a  bone  or  a  crust.  Indeed, 
Molly  never  seemed  half  so  anxious  to  eat,  her 
self,  as  she  was  to  bind  Rory  to  total  abstinence. 
When  a  plate  was  set  for  them,  the  preliminary 
ceremony  was  invariably  a  box  on  the  ear  for  poor 
Rory,  or  a  grab  on  the  neck,  from  Molly's  spas 
modic  paw,  which  would  not  release  its  hold  till 
armed  intervention  enforced  a  growling  neutral 
ity.  In  short,  like  the  hens,  these  cats  held  up 
a  mirror  to  human  nature.  They  showed  what 
men  and  women  would  be,  if  they  were  —  cats; 
which  they  would  be,  if  a  few  modifying  qualities 
were  left  out.  They  exhibit  selfishness  and  greed 
in  their  pure  forms,  and  we  see  and  ought  to  shun 
the  unlovely  shapes.  Evil  propensities  may  be 
hidden  by  a  silver  veil,  but  they  are  none  the 
less  evil  and  bring  forth  evil  fruit.  Let  cats  de 
light  to  snarl  and  bite,  but  let  men  and  women 
be  generous  and  beneficent. 

Little  chickens,  tender  and  winsome  as  they 
are,  early  discover  the  same  disposition.  When 
one  of  them  comes  into  possession  of  the  fore- 
quarter  of  a  fly,  he  does  not  share  it  with  his 


54  SUMMER   REST. 

brother.  He  does  not  even  quietly  swallow  it 
himself.  He  clutches  it  in  his  bill  and  flies  around 
in  circles  and  irregular  polygons,  like  one  dis 
tracted,  trying  to  find  a  corner  where  he  can  o;or- 

J          O  O 

mandize  alone.  It  is  no  matter  that  not  a  single 
chicken  is  in  pursuit,  nor  that  there  is  enough 
and  to  spare  for  all.  He  hears  a  voice  we  cannot 
hear,  telling  him  that  the  Philistines  be  upon  him. 
And  every  chicken  snatches  his  morsel  and  radi 
ates  from  every  other  as  fast  as  his  little  legs  can 
carry  him.  His  selfishness  overpowers  his  sense, 
—  which  is,  indeed,  not  a  very  signal  victory,  for 
his  selfishness  is  very  strong  and  his  sense  is  very 
weak.  It  is  no  wonder  that  Hopeful  was  well- 
nigh  moved  to  anger,  and  queried,  "  Why  art 
thou  so  tart,  my  brother  ?  "  when  Christian  said 
to  him,  "  Thou  talkest  like  one  upon  whose  head 
is  the  shell  to  this  very  day."  To  be  compared 
to  a  chicken  is  disparaging  enough  ;  but  to  be 
compared  to  a  chicken  so  very  young  that  he  has 
not  yet  quite  divested  himself  of  his  shell  must 
be,  as  Pet  Marjorie  would  say,  "  what  Nature 
itself  can't  endure."  A  little  chicken's  greedy 
crop  blinds  his  eyes  to  every  consideration  ex 
cept  that  of  the  insect  squirming  in  his  bill.  I 
watched  once  a  bill-to-bill  conflict  for  the  pos 
session  of  an  overgrown  earth-worm.  One  held 
it  by  the  head,  one  by  the  tail,  and  then  they 
just  braced  themselves  back  and  pulled  !  It  was 
a  laughable  affair  for  the  observer,  but  very  awk- 


A  PROSE  HENRIADE.  55 

ward  for  the  worm.  When  one,  exhausted,  let  go 
his  hold,  the  other  ran  ;  but  the  worm  dangled 
under  his  feet  and  impeded  him,  and  then  a  fresh 
little  bill  would  seize  it  and  scud  in  the  opposite 
direction.  The  unhappy  worm  changed  bills  re 
peatedly  and  dragged  at  each  remove  a  shorten 
ing  chain,  till  it  was  at  length  gobbled  up  piece 
meal,  and  on  the  whole  very  fairly  distributed. 
But  they  fought  just  as  furiously  and  ran  just  as 
frantically  for  its  last  inch  as  they  did  for  his 
whole  length.  They  snatched  it  from  each  other 
so  quickly  that  the  pursued  would  fly  quite  a 
distance  after  it  had  been  plucked  away  before 
he  discovered  his  loss,  when,  with  a  half-second's 
bewilderment,  he  would  turn  about  and  become 
pursuer.  Apparently  they  never  detected  the 
deterioration  in  their  prize,  nor  do  I  think  it  was 
ever  quite  clear  to  them  what  finally  became  of 
the  worm.  One  might  pity  their  victim,  but  I 
believe  that  kind  of  beast  is  somewhat  indifferent 
to  dissection,  —  on  the  whole  rather  likes  it. 

A  chicken  is  beautiful  and  round  and  full  of 
cunning  ways,  but  he  has  no  resources  for  an 
emergency.  He  will  lose  his  reckoning  and  be 
quite  out  at  sea,  though  only  ten  steps  from  home. 
He  never  knows  enough  to  turn  a  corner.  All 
his  intelligence  is  like  light,  moving  only  in  straight 
lines.  He  is  impetuous  and  timid,  and  has  not 
the  smallest  presence  of  mind  or  sagacity  to  dis 
cern  between  friend  and  foe.  He  has  no  confi- 


56  SUMMER  REST. 

dence  in  any  earthly  power  that  does  not  reside 
in  an  old  hen.  Her  cluck  will  he  follow  to  the 
last  ditch,  and  to  nothing  else  will  he  give  heed. 
I  am  afraid  that  the  Interpreter  was  putting  almost 
too  fine  a  point  upon  it,  when  he  had  Christiana 
and  her  children  "into  another  room,  where  was 
a  hen  and  chickens,  and  bid  them  observe  awhile. 
So  one  of  the  chickens  went  to  the  trough  to 
drink,  and  every  time  she  drank  she  lift  up  her 
head  and  her  eyes  towards  heaven.  '  See,'  said  he, 
4  what  this  little  chick  doth,  and  learn  of  her  to 
acknowledge  whence  your  mercies  come,  by  re 
ceiving  them  with  looking  up.' "  Doubtless  the 
chick  lift  her  eyes  towards  heaven,  but  a  close 
acquaintance  with  the  race  would  put  anything 
•but  acknowledgment  in  the  act.  A  gratitude 
that  thanks  Heaven  for  favors  received,  and  then 
runs  into  a  hole  to  prevent  any  other  person  from 
sharing  the  benefit  of  those  favors,  is  a  very  ques 
tionable  kind  of  gratitude,  and  certainly  should 
be  confined  to  the  bipeds  that  wear  feathers. 

Yet,  if  you  take  away  selfishness  from  a  chick 
en's  moral  make-up,  and  fatuity  from  his  intel 
lectual,  you  have  a  very  charming  little  creature 
left.  For,  apart  from  their  excessive  greed,  chick 
ens  seem  to  be  affectionate.  They  have  sweet 
social  ways.  They  huddle  together  with  fond 
caressing  chatter,  and  chirp  soft  lullabies.  Their 
toilet  performances  are  full  of  interest.  They  trim 
each  other's  bills  with  great  thoroughness  and 


A   PROSE  HENRIADE.  57 

dexterity,  much  better  indeed  than  they  dress 
their  own  heads,  —  for  their  bungling,  awkward 
little  claws  make  sad  work  of  it.  It  is  as  much 
as  they  can  do  to  stand  on  two  feet,  and  they 
naturally  make  several  revolutions  when  they  at 
tempt  to  stand  on  one.  Nothing  can  be  more 
ludicrous  than  their  early  efforts  to  walk.  They 
do  not  really  walk.  They  sight  their  object,  waver, 
balance,  decide,  and  then  tumble  forward,  stopping 
all  in  a  heap  as  soon  as  the  original  impetus  is  lost, 
— generally  some  way  ahead  of  the  place  to  which 
they  wished  to  go.  It  is  delightful  to  watch  them 
as  drowsiness  films  their  round,  bright,  black  eyes, 
and  the  dear  old  mother  croons  them  under  her 
ample  wings,  and  they  nestle  in  perfect  harmony. 
How  they  manage  to  bestow  themselves  with  such 
limited  accommodations,  or  how  they  manage  to 
breathe  in  a  room  so  close,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine. 
They  certainly  deal  a  staggering  blow  to  our  pre 
conceived  notions  of  the  necessity  of  oxygen  and 
ventilation,  but  they  make  it  easy  to  see  whence 
the  Germans  derived  their  fashion  of  sleeping  under 
feather-beds.  But  breathe  and  bestow  themselves 
they  do.  The  deep  mother-heart  and  the  broad 
mother-wings  take  them  all  in.  They  penetrate 
her  feathers,  and  open  for  themselves  unseen  little 
doors  into  the  mysterious,  brooding,  beckoning 
darkness.  But  it  is  long  before  they  can  arrange 
themselves  satisfactorily.  They  chirp,  and  stir,  and 
snuggle,  trying  to  find  the  warmest  and  softest 

3* 


58  SUMMER   REST. 

nook.  Now  an  uneasy  head  is  thrust  out,  and 
now  a  whole  tiny  body,  but  it  soon  re-enters  in 
another  quarter,  and  at  length  the  stir  and  chirr 
grow  still.  You  see  only  a  collection  of  little 
legs,  as  if  the  hen  were  a  banyan-tree,  and 
presently  even  they  disappear,  she  settles  down 
comfortably,  and  all  are  wrapped  in  a  slumberous 
silence.  And  as  I  sit  by  the  hour,  watching  their 
winning  ways,  and  see  all  the  steps  of  this  sleepy 
subsidence,  I  can  but  remember  that  outburst  of 
love  and  sorrow  from  the  lips  of  Him  who,  though 
He  came  to  earth  from  a  dwelling-place  of  ineffa 
ble  glory,  called  nothing  unclean  because  it  was 
common,  found  no  homely  detail  too  homely  or 
too  trivial  to  illustrate  the  Father's  love,  but  from 
the  birds  of  the  air,  the  fish  of  the  sea,  the  lilies 
of  the  field,  the  stones  in  the  street,  the  foxes  in 
their  holes,  the  patch  on  a  coat,  the  oxen  in  the 
furrow,  the  sheep  in  the  pit,  the  camel  under  his 
burden,  drew  lessons  of  divine  pity  and  patience, 
of  heavenly  duty  and  delight.  Standing  in  the 
presence  of  the  great  congregation,  seeing,  as 
never  man  saw,  the  hypocrisy  and  the  iniquity 
gathered  before  Him,  —  seeing  too,  alas !  the  ca 
lamities  and  the  woe  that  awaited  this  doomed 
people,  a  god-like  pity  overbears  His  righteous 
indignation,  and  cries  out  in  passionate  appeal, 
"  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou  that  killest  the 
prophets,  and  stonest  them  which  are  sent  unto 
thee,  how  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  chil- 


A   PROSE  HENRI ADE.  59 

dren  together,  even  as  a  lien  gathereth  her  chick 
ens  under  her  wings,  and  ye  would  not !  " 

The  agriculturist  says  that  women  take  care 
of  young  chickens  much  better  than  men.  I  can 
easily  believe  it.  One  of  our  chickens  seemed  to 
be  drooping  awhile  ago,  and  I  reported  the  fact  to 
a  man  who  lives  on  the  farm.  "  Sick,  eh  ?  Better 
give  him  some  Richardson's  Bitters."  That  is  all 
a  man  knows !  I  suppose  my  face  said  something 
of  the  sort,  for  he  added,  "  Or  perhaps  take  him 
out  to  drive  with  you  for  a  change  of  air."  I  did 
neither,  only  let  him  diet  a  little,  and  he  was  well 
in  a  day.  In  fact,  my  experiments  with  chickens 
have  been  attended  with  a  success  so  brilliant  that 
unfortunate  poultry-fanciers  have  appealed  to  me 
for  assistance.  I  have  even  taken  ailing  chickens 
from  the  city  to  board.  A  brood  of  nineteen  had 
rapidly  dwindled  down  to  eleven  when  it  was 
brought  to  me,  one  even  then  dying.  His  little 
life  ebbed  away  in  a  few  hours  ;  but  of  the  re 
maining  ten,  nine,  now  in  the  third  week  of 
their  abode  under  my  roof,  have  recovered  health, 
strength,  and  spirits,  and  bid  fair  to  live  to  a  good 
old  age,  if  not  prematurely  cut  off.  One  of  them, 
more  feeble  than  the  others,  needed  and  received 
especial  attention.  Him  I  tended  through  dreary 
days  of  east-wind  and  rain  in  a  box  on  the  mantel 
piece,  nursing  him  through  a  severe  attack  of 
asthma,  feedino;  and  amusing  him  through  his 


60  SUMMER  REST. 

protracted  convalescence,  holding  him  in  my  hand 
one  whole  Sunday  afternoon  to  relieve  him  of 
home-sickness  and  hen-sickness,  and  being  re 
warded  at  last  by  seeing  animation  and  activity 
come  back  to  his  poor  sickly  little  body.  He  will 
never  be  a  robust  chicken.  He  seems  to  have  a 
permanent  distortion  of  the  spine,  and  his  crop  is 
one-sided  ;  and  if  there  is  any  such  thing  as  blind 
staggers,  he  has  them.  Besides,  he  has  a  strong 
and  increasing  tendency  not  to  grow.  This,  how 
ever,  I  reckon  a  beauty  rather  than  a  blemish. 
It  is  the  one  fatal  defect  in  chickens  that  they 
grow.  With  them,  youth  and  beauty  are  truly 
inseparable  terms^  The  better  they  are,  the  worse 
they  look.  After  they  are  three  weeks  old,  every 
day  detracts  from  their  comeliness.  They  lose  their 
plump  roundness,  their  fascinating  soft  down,  and 
put  out  the  most  ridiculous  little  wings  and  tails 
and  hard-looking  feathers,  and  are  no  longer  dear, 
tender  chicks,  but  small  hens,  —  a  very  uninterest 
ing  Young  America.  It  is  said,  that,  if  you  give 
chickens  rum,  they  will  not  grow,  but  retain  always 
their  juvenile  size  and  appearance.  Under  our 
present  laws  it  is  somewhat  difficult,  I  suppose, 
to  obtain  rum,  and  I  fear  it  would  be  still  more 
difficult  to  administer  it.  I  have  concluded  instead 
to  keep  some  hen  sitting  through  the  summer,  and 
so  have  a  regular  succession  of  young  chickens. 
The  growth  of  my  little  patient  was  not  arrested 
at  a  sufficiently  early  stage  to  secure  his  perpetual 


A  PROSE  HENRI ADE.  61 

good  looks,  and,  as  I  intimated,  he  will  never, 
probably,  be  the  Windship  of  his  race ;  but  he  has 
found  his  appetite,  he  is  free  from  acute  disease, 
he  runs  about  with  the  rest,  under-sized,  but 
bright,  happy,  and  enterprising,  and  is  therefore 
a  wellspring  of  pleasure.  Indeed,  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  I  have  unquestionably  saved  his  life,  we 
talk  seriously  of  opening  a  Hotel  des  Invalides,  a 
kind  of  Chickens'  Home,  that  the  benefits  which 
he  has  received  may  be  extended  to  all  his  un 
fortunate  brethren  who  stand  in  need. 


LARVA     LESSONS. 


BOUT  this  matter  of  June  there   is  a 
great  deal   to   be  said    on    both   sides. 
June  has  a  great  reputation,  —  June, 
beloved  of  youth  and  maidens,  —  June, 
dear  to  poets. 

"  What  is  so  rare  as  a  day  in  June ! 
Then  if  ever  come  perfect  days," 

or  something  like  that,  sighs  the  knight  of  Laun- 
fals,  and  all  June-lovers  swell  the  chorus ;  but 
June  has  another  side  to  her  shield  that  shines 
with  a  different  and  a  less  lustrous  light.  June 
roses  have  woven  wreathes  for  many  a  lay,  but  I 
went  out  to  my  rose-bushes  this  morning,  after  a 
few  days'  absence,  and  behold  !  havoc  and  ravage  ; 
for  delicate  green  leaves,  only  wiry  skeletons, 
from  which  life  and  loveliness  had  departed.  Near 
the  ground,  to  the  brown,  mottled  stalk  clung  the 
cause,  —  a  great  gluttonous  caterpillar,  full  to  the 
brim  of  pulpy  parenchyma,  and  dreaming  his  dull 
larvic  dreams  in  stupid  satisfaction.  A  whisking 
stick  soon  snapped  him  off  into  space  ;  but  will  my 


LARVA    LESSONS.  63 

rose-buds  be  able  to  grow  into  full-blown  beauty 
with  lungs  so  frightfully  diseased  ?  Over  against 
the  rose-bush  stands  a  young  apple-tree,  faint  and 
feeble  with  the  repeated  charges  of  a  battalion 
of  canker-worms.  The  other  night  a  high  wind 
blew,  and  the  old  elm-tree  was  depopulated ;  at 
least,  if  one  might  judge  from  the  population 
that  suddenly  appeared  around  it  and  beneath  it. 
The  canker-worms,  flung  off  by  the  wind,  spun 
down  from  the  window-frames,  looped  up  the  door 
posts,  spanned  along  the  fences,  tormenting  us  be 
fore  the  time.  They  knew  it,  too.  They  felt  in 
their  gelatinous  frames  that  their  hour  was  not  yet 
come  ;  so,  instead  of  scooping  out  their  little  graves, 
they  began  a  toilsome  " homeward  bound!"  up, 
up,  up  into  the  old  elm-tree,  if  possible,  but,  at 
all  events,  up,  by  such  slow,  painful,  intermittent 
lunges  and  loops,  that  one  could  but  pity  while 
he  loathed.  Rudely  disturbed  in  their  cradles, 
rudely  ousted  from  their  homes,  they  hang  around, 
bewildered  and  disgusting,  heart-sick  and  home 
sick.  Their  meek  brown  ugliness  looks  up  from 
every  surface.  We  have  lived  on  carbon  and 
nitrogen  for  several  days ;  for  no  sooner  was  a 
window  opened  than  a  stray  little  fellow  would 
look  in,  bow,  throw  forward  his  head,  bring  up 
his  tail,  and  there  he  was  !  They  fringe  the 
closed  blinds,  and  speckle  the  gray  door-stone. 
There  is  no  comfort  in  church,  because  there  is 
always  a  canker-worm  on  the  woman  in  front  of 


64  SUMMER  REST. 

you,  just  at  the  edge  of  her  collar,  balancing 
himself  on  his  hind  legs  and  gazing  around  wildly 
in  doubt  whether  to  set  his  fore  and  four  hundred 
horrid  feet  down  on  her  bare  neck  or  some 
where  else,  and  while  you  are  dreading  what  to 
do  you  feel  one  looping  over  your  own  wrist. 
Poor  things !  it  is  to  be  hoped  they  do  not  know 
how  disagreeable  they  are,  but  go  on  rearing  their 
helpless  little  ones  writh  serene  self-complacence, 
unsuspecting  that  they  are  not  the  very  pink  of 
the  universe. 

Their  existence  is  a  living  monument  of  circular 
justice,  an  ever-recurring  proof  of  the  inevitable- 
ness  of  the  laws  of  compensation.  I  walk  past 
an  orchard,  shrivelled,  red,  dry,  dead,  and  mourn 
over  the  ruin,  — juice  and  flavor  and  tang  of 
luscious  apples,  sweetness  of  marmalade  and  jellies, 
homely  hospitality  of  pan-dowdies  and  dumplings, 
all  withered  away,  leaving  only  an  arid  waste. 
"  Whence  and  wherefore  comes  this  destroying 
army?"  I  sigh;  and  from  the  savans  comes  an 
swer,  Because  ye  have  hewed  dow7n  the  forests 
which  were  their  natural  homes,  the  forests  whose 
broad  expanse  gave  them  ample  room  and  verge 
enough  to  increase  and  multiply ;  the  forests  where 
in  they  could  feed  without  devouring,  and  flourish 
without  destroying ;  because,  madder  yet,  ye  have 
lifted  up  your  hands  against  the  birds ;  for  grudge 
of  the  few  cherries  which-  they  took,  taxes  rather 
than  booty,  nay,  even  out  of  wanton  and  wicked 


LARVA    LESSONS.  65 

lust  of  blood  and  fierce  greed  of  taking  life,  ye 
have  shot  and  snared  the  birds,  your  foresters, 
which  kept  the  balance  true,  and  insured  the 
preservation  of  God's  own  game-laws,  restraining 
increase  and  multiplication  within  natural  and 
harmless  limits."  "  Live  and  let  live,"  I  begin 
to  think  is  the  watchword  of  creation.  Nature 
evolves  her  myriads,  but  with  such  nice  adjust 
ments  that  interference  mars  her  proportions,  and 
creates  fatal  disturbance.  We  have  all  read  how  a 
new  centre-table  introduced  discord  and  discontent 
into  an  old  and  formerly  peaceful  and  harmonious 
room,  so  that  time-honored  furniture  withdrew 
to  attics,  and  finer  reigned  in  its  stead ;  walls  re 
treated,  ceilings  soared,  and  the  unhappy  owner 
found  no  rest  till  an  entirely  new  house  squared 
itself  around  the  new  table,  unconscious  cause  of 
all  his  \voe.  With  just  such  exact  dovetailing  has 
Nature  grouped  her  arrangements,  and  one  dis- 
jointure  makes  the  whole  system  rickety.  We 
have  felled  the  forests  that  should  have  fed  the 
canker-worms,  we  have  shot  the  birds  that  should 
have  eaten  them,  and  now  they  swarm  in  our 
gardens,  and  spin  down  before  our  faces,  and  we 
vex  our  souls  in  vain  to  mend  our  losses.  Yonder 
goes  a  man  in  blue  blouse  and  overalls,  with  a 
long  hooked  pole  in  his  hand.  Responsive  to  his 
soft,  sonorous  call,  a  troop  of  motherly  "  biddies," 
proud  young  pullets,  and' even  a  few  inexperienced 
chickens,  cluck  and  scamper  at  his  heels.  What  is 


66  SUMMER  REST. 

the  man  going  to  do  with  the  hooked  pole,  and 
why  do  the  chickens  run  ?  (if  I  may  adopt  the 
style  which  seems  to  be  in  vogue  among  the  later 
novelists.)  The  man  is  going  to  hook  his  hook 
into  the  tree,  and  shake  the  limbs,  and  the  poultry 
sees  with  prophetic  eye  a  fat  repast ;  with  the 
first  jar,  and  with  each  succeeding  jar,  the  startled 
denizens  of  the  apple-tree  will  come  tumbling 
down  into  the  very  jaws  of  death.  Seed-time  of 
canker-worms  is  harvest-time  of  hens.  Corn  and 
moist  meal  and  the  loved  potato-parings  have  lost 
their  charms  for  the  brood  that  loiters  coop-ward 
with  distended  crops.  Many  will  be  the  desolated 
homes  on  the  green  leaves  to-night,  and  sweet  the 
dreams  of  Dame  Partlet  on  her  peaceful  perch,  — 
not  knowing  that,  like  the  suppression  of  the  Re 
bellion,  "  it  is  but  a  question  of  time,"  and  the 
same  solace '  that  has  been  administered  to  her  by 
her  articulated  sisters  she  shall  one  day  administer 
to  her  vertebral  kinsmen. 

But  hens  are  not  the  only  foes  that  lie  in  wait. 
Unclean  beasts,  —  that  noisome  race  into  which 
the  devils  entered  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  and 
of  which  they  have  held  possession  ever  since, — 
prey  on  these  defenceless  creatures.  Horrid  snouts 
root  into  the  warm  little  caves,  wherein  the  tender 
chrysalids  lie,  and  bring  inexorable  fate.  Or  in 
their  long  spring  journeys  up  the  difficult  bark, 
the  virgins  are  submerged  unawares  in  a  boundless 
sea  of  oil,  or 'mired  in  vast  bogs  of  tar.  Nay, 


LARVA    LESSONS.  67 

human  hate  does  not  confine  itself  to  human  inge 
nuity,  but  shamelessly  has  recourse  to  the  very 
nature  which  it  has  outraged. 

"  Call  for  the  robin  redbreast  and  the  wren," 

despairing  nurseryman.  Hither  lure  the  angry 
wasp  that  stores  her  cellars  writh  vermes-steak,  well 
salted  down.  Hither  let  the  beetle  wheel  his 
droning  flight,  and  hither  come  the  winged  epi 
cures  that  regale  themselves  on  omelets  of  canker- 
worm  eggs.  With  all  our  appliances,  surely  there 
shall  be  none  left  to  tell  the  tale.  That  which  the 
unclean  beasts  have  left  the  tar  hath  swallowed, 
and  that  which  the  tar  hath  left  Jenny  Wren 
hath  eaten,  and  that  which  Jenny  hath  left  Chanti 
cleer  hath  devoured.  But  boast  not  thyself,  O 
man.  Though  canker-worms  be  little  upon  the 
earth,  they  are  exceeding  wise.  For  all  your 
tar  and  your  poles,  it  shall  go  hard  but  in  your 
teil-tree  shall  be  left  a  tenth,  —  two  or  three  in  the 
top  of  the  uppermost  bough,  four  or  five  in  the 
outmost  fruitful  branches  thereof;  and  when  you 
reflect  that  a  single  moth  will  lay  a  hundred  eggs, 
you  need  not  be  surprised  next  year  to  feel  a 
dozen  or  two  swinging  into  your  face  as  you  walk 
to  and  fro  in  your  orchard. 

There  is  a  comforting  tradition  that  canker- 
worms  have  a  seven  years'  lease  of  life,  and  then 
die  out.  But  do  not  set  your  heart  and  stake 
your  property  upon  it.  The  damsel  who  remem 
bers  all  along 


68  SUMMER   REST. 

"  From  when  she  gambolled  on  the  green, 

A  baby-germ,  till  when 
The  maiden  blossoms  of  her  teens 
Had  numbered  five  from  ten," 

and  five  more,  has  not  outlived  the  dynasty  of  the 
canker-worms.  They  come  and  go  when  and 
where  they  list.  Your  trees  are  leafless  and  bar 
ren,  your  neighbors'  are  green  and  fruitful ;  and 
though  in  the  multitude  of  words  that  are  used  to 

O 

account  for  this  there  wanteth  not  wisdom,  he  that 
refraineth  his  lips  is  the  wisest ;  for  the  burden  of 
the  knowledge  of  the  nineteenth  century  may  be 
found  in  the  book  of  the  vision  of  Nahum  the  Elko- 
shite,  written  now  these  five  and  twenty  centuries: 
44  The  canker-worm  spoileth,  and  flieth  away." 

There  is  also  a  tradition  that  caterpillars  eat 
canker-worms,  and  so  make  themselves  partially 
useful;  but  they  do  not.  They  eat  everything 
else.  It  is  as  Joel  says,  "  That  which  the  canker- 
worm  hath  left  hath  the  caterpillar  eaten."  Some 
one  looking  over  my  shoulder  says  the  tradition 
is,  not  that  they  eat  canker-worms,  but  eat  them 
out,  —  so  destroy  the  herbage  that  there  is  nothing 
left  for  their  smaller  brethren.  I  question  whether 
there  is  much  truth  in  either  report,  except  what 
lies  in  the  radical  fact,  that  they  eat.  They  leave 
their  nests  among  the  birds  in  the  morning,vand 
crawl  up  and  down  seeking  what  they  may  devour. 
At  noon  they  withdraw  to  their  homes  for  a  nap. 
Towards  evening  again  they  take  their  walks 


LA  R  VA     LESSONS.  69 

abroad,  evidently,  but  very  inconveniently,  sharing 
mortal  delight  in  the  cool  of  the  day.  But  they 
pay  the  penalty  for  presuming  to  mimic  their 
betters.  If  they  kept  themselves  dispersed  like 
canker-worms,  they  might  as  easily  elude  capture  ; 
but  by  spontaneous  concentration  they  prepare  the 
way  for  that  difficult  military  operation  known 
as  "  bagging."  Lovely  Lulu  looks  longingly  from 
her  lattice  towards  the  green  quiet  of  the  country, 
and  fancies  June  to  be  all  roses  and  nightingales. 
But  this  noon  a  beautiful  orchard,  responsive  to 
gentle  solicitations,  yielded  up  a  bucketful  of  cater 
pillars.  Yes,  Mr.  Robert  Browning,  that  is 

"  What  '&  in  the  blossom 
June  wears  in  her  bosom," 

I  regret  to  be  obliged  to  admit,  —  a  bucketful  of 
caterpillars  !  And  then  Halicarnassus  comes  in 
gleefully,  and  says  they  have  made  a  clean  breast 
of  it.  There  is  n't  a  caterpillar  left  on  the  farm ! 
By  way  of  comment,  I  point  to  one  just  rolling 
up  the  door-step.  "  Yes,"  he  says,  winking  very 
hard,  "  that  is  one  of  the  neighbors'  caterpillars 
running  over  to  make  a  call  on  ours." 

But  there  is  small  good  in  cleaning  out  your 
own  borders  unless  the  community  make  common 
cause  with  you.  Why  does  not  America,  like 
France,  pass  a  law  constituting  it  a  penal  offence 
to  harbor  caterpillars  ? 

One  can  hardly  walk  through  the  street  without 
bringing  home  on  his  clothes  enough  to  found  a 


70  SUMMER  REST. 

flourishing  colony.  You  climb  up  a  stone-wall, 
and  barely  save  yourself  from  descending  into 
half  a  dozen  nests  on  the  other  side.  They  gather 
in  squirming  squads  under  the  heads  of  the  gate 
posts,  and  creep,  creep,  creep,  with  slow  persistence 
up  the  sides  of  the  house.  Last  evening  I  found 
in  the  lane  a  shattered  nest.  The  occupants  had 
evidently  been  rudely  torn  from  their  home  and 
greatly  disturbed,  —  quite  put  out,  in  fact ;  but  they 
had  rallied,  organized  their  forces,  drawn  up  in 
line,  sent  out  scouts,  stationed  pickets,  and  were 
en  route  for  the  place  where  their  Troy  was. 
From  the  wheel-rut  in  the  road  to  the  grassy  side 
walk  —  more  than  a  yard  —  they  formed  a  solid 
column ;  marching  in  a  straight  line  at  an  acute 
angle  with  the  road  in  a  tolerably  regular  rank 
and  file,  from  two  to  four  abreast,  with  two  active, 
energetic  leaders,  who  were  continually  striking 
out  right  and  left  and  returning  to  report.  I 
passed  that  way  again  in  about  half  an  hour,  to 
find  them  still  moving.  A  wagon  had  gone  by 
meanwhile,  but  there  were  no  traces  of  disaster. 
Their  bodies  were  scarcely  half-grown,  but  the 
emergency  seemed  to  have  ripened  their  souls 
prematurely. 

The  other  day  there  might  have  been  seen  a 
caterpillar  coming  down  the  gravel-walk  in  a 
ludicrously  eager  hurry.  He  was  a  singular  look 
ing  creature,  —  much  more  elaborately  finished  off 
than  the  rest  of  his  kind,  for  his  tail  tapered  and 


LARVA     LESSONS.  71 

terminated  in  a  curious  black  bead.  He  made 
such  an  impression  on  me,  that  after  I  had  reached 
the  house  I  turned  back  again  to  examine  him. 
Minute  investigation  resolved  the  black  bead  into 

O 

a  terrible  little  vixen  of  a  huge  black  ant  that  had 

O 

fastened  upon  him  and  was  putting  him  to  the 
torture.  The  caterpillar  would  plunge  ahead  a 
few  wriggles,  —  which  I  take  to  be  Caterpillaree 
for  paces,  —  dragging  the  ant  with  him.  Then 
losing  patience,  he  would  halt,  double  himself 
back  into  an  O,  and  butt  off  the  ant.  The  latter 
would  make  a  side-leap  and  keep  away  till  the  cater 
pillar  started,  then  fasten  upon  his  side,  perhaps, 
and  away  they  would  go  again.  Then  would  come 
another  halt,  another  hit,  another  leap,  grapple, 
race.  The  energy  of  that  ant  cannot  be  de 
scribed  or  surpassed.  He  evidently  knew  no  such 
word  as  fail.  Thrust  aside,  he  would  take  breath, 
push  up  his  wristbands,  —  in  a  figure,  —  and  begin 
afresh.  He  had  all  the  persistency  that  belongs 
to  a  fight  and  all  the  agility  that  belongs  to  a  frolic. 
The  caterpillar  labored  under  the  same  disadvan 
tages  that  attended  our  commerce  in  its  conflict 
with  the  late  Rebel  navy  :  he  presented  a  broad 
frontier  for  attack,  and  had  but  small  opportunity 
for  reprisals.  I  followed  in  their  wake  till  they 
disappeared  beneath  a  rose-bush.  Do  you  think 
I  ought  to  have  separated  them  ?  How  do  I 
know  which  was  to  blame?  Perhaps  the  cater 
pillar  had  mobbed  the  ant's  house  or  murdered 


72  SUMMER  REST. 

all  his  brood  at  one  fell  swoop,  and  was  only 
reaping  his  meet  reward.  A  little  power  does  not 
generally  attack  a  large  power  without  extreme 
provocation  ;  and  Nature  must  adjudicate  in  her 
own  courts.  Besides,  I  have  heard  that  there  is 
a  natural  hostility  between  black  ants  and  cater 
pillars,  and  that  you  can  at  any  time  have  all  the 
excitement  and  pleasure  of  a  bull-fight  by  offering 
them  to  each  other. 

Caterpillars  are  a  melancholy  race.  They  have 
no  vivacity,  no  song,  no  sport,  no  seeming  interest 
in  anything  but  some  mysterious,  far-off  errand. 
They  lie  about  hopeless  and  heavy ;  nor,  indeed, 
can  it  well  be  otherwise,  if  they  eat,  as  is  asserted, 
and  as  the  poor  rose-bushes  and  apple-trees  seem 
to  indicate,  seven  hundred  times  their  own  weight 
in  a  day.  Spiders,  loathsome  though  they  be, 
are  ever  on  the  alert ;  but  caterpillars  hang  to  the 
posts  or  squirm  aimlessly  about  each  other  till 
they  have  arrived  at  maturity,  and  then,  with  con 
stant  restlessness,  they  creep,  creep,  creep  slowly 
to  their  graves.  Nobody  sees  what  becomes  of 
them  ;  only  you  notice  a  belated  and  bewildered 
wayfarer  wandering  about  like  one  who  treads 
alone  some  banquet-hall  deserted,  or  a  brilliant 
black  and  red  creature,  large  enough  for  a  child's 
muff,  hurrying  in  great  waves  across  the  road  ; 
then  you  wake  suddenly  to  the  fact  that  the 
caterpillars  are  gone. 

We  have  speculated  much  this   summer,  and 


LARVA    LESSONS.  73 

about  caterpillars  as  well  as  other  things.  Hali- 
carnassus  is  disposed  to  take  a  desponding  view 
of  the  matter.  "  What  right  or  reason  have 
We,"  he  asks,  "  to  endow  ourselves  with  an  im 
mortality  which  we  deny  to  them  ?  They  are  to 
us  a  disagreeable  incident,  which  we  quietly  put 
out  of  the  way  as  fast  as  possible  ;  regarding  only 
our  own  convenience,  and  often  only  our  own  feel 
ings,  and  not  at  all  their  pleasure  or  profit.  Why 
may  it  not  be  that  we  hold  to  a  higher  race  of 
beings  the  same  relation  which  this  holds  to  us  ? 
Why  may  it  not  be  that  our  lives  are  relatively 
as  transient  and  unimportant,  and  that  we  perish 
as  entirely  and  as  unregarded  ?  " 

"  Well,"  I  answer,  "  I  don't  know  why,  only 
we  don't." 

"But  are  you  so  sure  of  that ?  As  far  as  we 
see,  man  goeth  to  the  grave,  and  where  is  he  ?  " 

I.  But  he  goes  to  his  grave  by  the  law  of  his 
own  nature.  He  dies  or  is  killed  by  his  kind. 
He  is  not  brought  into  contact  with  any  higher 
race,  and  the  caterpillar  is.  His  higher  race  is 
close  about  him.  He  sees  it  and  feels  it.  Our 
higher  race,  if  we  have  any,  is  invisible  and  im 
palpable.  It  never  gives  any  sign,  and  I  don't 
believe  in  you  (defiantly,  in  case  any  of  them 
should  happen  to  be  within  hearing). 

H.  Very  just  reasoning ;  yet  if  that  group  of 
caterpillars  yonder  should  happen  to  be  a  debating- 
society,  in  which  two  philosophers  like  us  are  dis- 

4 


74  SUMMER   REST. 

cussing  the  question  of  a  higher  race,  they  use, 
unquestionably,  the  same  arguments  which  you 
have  advanced,  and  will  arrive  at  just  as  decided  a 
negative. 

I.  You  mean  that  they  do  not  see  us  nor  hear 
us? 

H.  They  do  not  see  us  as  us.  To  them  we  are 
only  obstacle,  danger,  accident,  not  beings. 

I.  Very  true.  When  I  crush  an  insect  under 
my  foot,  I  suppose  he  does  not  suspect  it  is  the 
foot  of  his  superior  that  crushed  him. 

H.  Certainly  not.  He  will  always  think  he 
died  in  a  fit. 

I.  When  we  kill  them  by  the  bucketful,  they 
do  not  know  it  is  "  we  "  or  a  "  bucket." 

H.  No,  they  probably  call  it  an  earthquake,  an 
avalanche,  the  operation  of  natural  laws.  And 
when  the  French  soldiers  were  writhing  in  Victor 
Hugo's  pit  at  Waterloo,  they  called  it  a  pit,  and 
not  a  higher  power. 

/.  But  they  knew  they  rushed  in,  and  the 
caterpillars  must  have  known,  if  they  knew  any 
thing,  that  they  did  not  walk  into  that  bucket  by 
any  will  of  their  own,  even  if  they  did  not  per 
ceive  the  existence  of  any  higher  will. 

H.  Some  higher  power  may  have  acted  on  our 
circumstances  just  as  directly,  if  not  just  as  per 
ceptibly,  as  we  act  on  a  caterpillar's.  Perhaps, 
when  we  grope  out  among  the  stars,  or  feel  down 
into  the  earth  after  the  fossils  and  the  fire  and  all 


LARVA     LESSONS.  75 

the  old  time's  secrets,  we  crawl  into  their  domain 
just  as  obnoxiously  as  the  caterpillars  do  into 
ours,  and  so  they  contrive  ways  to  rid  themselves 
of  us. 

I.  But  we  have  faculties,  feelings,  thoughts,  en 
tirely  above  and  beyond  them.  They  have  not 
even  the  germ  of  what  we  have  in  full  flower, 
and  there  is  no  analogy  between  us.  We  are  an 
entirely  distinct  race,  and  you  cannot  reason  from 
them  to  us. 

H.  So  is  the  dog  and  so  is  the  cat  an  entirely  dis 
tinct  race  from  the  caterpillar ;  they  have  thoughts 
and  feelings  which  the  most  cultivated  and 'highly 
developed  caterpillar  never  attained  to.  Yet  their 
great  sagacity  does  not  immortalize  them. 

L  But  they  have  no  intellect,  no  conscience. 

H.  Pardon  me,  I  think  we  have  evidence  of 
both.  They  reason,  and  they  distinguish  right  from 
wrong.  When  Rory  is  sleeping  on  the  kitchen 
mat  before  the  fire,  she  does  not  stir  for  your 
approach ;  she  only  raises  her  head  sleepily,  or 
perhaps  puts  up  her  nose  for  a  caress.  But  when 
she  has  surreptitiously  crept  up  stairs  and  bestowed 
herself  on  the  best  bed  to  take  her  after-dinner 
nap,  no  sooner  does  she  hear  an  approaching  foot 
step  than  she  leaps  off  and  scuds  down  the  back 
stairs.  There,  it  seems  to  me,  you  have  memory, 
conscience,  reasoning,  and  prudent  action  ;  and 
often  dogs  and  cats  show  these  and  other  high 
human  qualities  in  far  more  intricate  forms. 


76  SUMMER   REST. 

I.  Yes,  but  their  reasoning  never  goes  beyond  a 
certain  limit.  It  is  confined  to  concrete  personal 
matters.  They  never  reason  on  abstractions,  and 
even  their  conscience  is,  I  apprehend,  a  purely 
physical  one.  They  have  no  notion  of  right  as 
right.  They  know  that  such  a  thing  is  followed 
by  punishment  and  such  a  thing  by  caresses. 
That  is  all. 

H.  And  that  is  all  a  small  child  knows.  He 
distinguishes  right  from  wrong,  but  has  no  con 
ception  of  right  or  of  God,  while  in  point  of 
intellect  he  is  far  beneath  the  dog. 

I.  But  he  is  susceptible  of  unlimited  cultivation, 
while  no  dog  was  ever  educated  into  a  knowledge 
of  holiness  or  of  mathematics. 

H.  Certainly  there  is  a  difference  in  degree,  but 
it  still  remains  that  you  have  in  the  dog  the  germs 
of  his  master's  qualities.  Now  the  point  is,  why 
do  we  affirm  that  those  beings  in  whom  the  germ 
exists  must  die,  while  those  in  whom  it  is  a  little 
more  developed  shall  live  ?  What  element  of  life 
exists  in  a  quart  of  intellect  that  does  not  inhere 
in  a  thimbleful  ?  If  the  cultivation  of  faculties 
is  the  crucial  test,  many  a  man  will  be  in  evil 
case  as  compared  with  his  dog.  With  a  capacity 
of  becoming  godlike,  he  does  meaner  things  than 
even  his  dog  can  do.  His  dog  is  faithful  to  his 
bad  master;  his  master  is  faithless  to  his  good 
wife  and  his  innocent  children.  The  dog  lives 
an  honest  and  enlightened  dog  life.  The  man 


LARVA    LESSONS.  77 

perverts  his  powers  to  brutal  and  worse  than 
brutal  uses.  Why  is  he  to  be  permitted  to  live 
forever,  —  a  blot  upon  creation,  —  while  the  high 
hearted  dog  must  go  back  to  darkness  and  dust  ? 

/.  Yet  Dr.  Kane,  who  must  certainly  have  seen 
very  low  if  not  the  lowest  types  of  human  kind 
and  some  of  the  highest  types  of  animal,  said  he 
considered  the  lowest  man  higher  than  the  highest 
brute. 

If.  We  should  need  to  inquire  what  precisely 
he  meant  by  "low"  and  "high." 

/.  My  dear,  this  is  all  nonsense.  You  know 
perfectly  well  that  there  is  an  essential  difference 
between  brute  and  man  ;  and  that  this  —  whatever 
you  call  it,  —  soul,  spirit,  heart,  —  this  in  which  the 
essential  difference  consists,  —  is  indestructible. 

If.  How  do  I  know  it? 

I.  You  know  it  from  the  Bible. 

If.  Where  does  the  Bible  say  so  ? 

I.  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  any  one  verse 
where  it  is  said  in  so  many  words  ;  but  the  whole, 
Bible  goes  upon  the  assumption  that  the  soul  is 
immortal.  The  incarnation  of  Christ  is  presump 
tive  evidence  of  it.  The  means  would  be  dis 
proportionate  to  the  end,  if  the  Son  of  God  had 
died  to  redeem  creatures  whose  lives  were  to 
stretch  over  but  a  few  years,  —  a  mere  point  of 
time  compared  with  the  boundless  eternity. 

If.  Pardon  me  again,  but  you  are  speaking  from 
the  midst  of  confusion.  You  are  mixing  up  theo- 


78  SUMMER  REST. 

ries  which  are  entirely  separate.  You  say,  first, 
that  man  and  beast  are  essentially  different,  and 
therefore  man  is  immortal.  I  dispute  your  major 
premise.  Man  may  have  an  element  of  character 
or  of  nature,  if  you  will,  entirely  distinct  from, 
and  indisputably  higher  than,  the  animal ;  but  it 
need  not,  for  that  reason,  be  immortal.  What  the 
essence  of  immortality  is,  what  that  quality  is 
whose  very  existence  is  its  guaranty  of  eternity, 
I  do  not  know.  I  certainly  do  not  see  any  reason 
for  supposing  that  humanity,  which  in  its  naked 
infancy  is  visibly  but  earthiness,  is  that  quality. 
If  the  Bible  should,  as  you  think,  give  us  God's 
word  for  it,  that  would  be  enough.  But,  so  far 
from  assuming  any  such  thing,  it  seems  to  me  to 
assume  quite  the  contrary.  The  Bible  continually 
represents  the  soul,  not  as  inherently,  but  only  as 
contingently  immortal.  Eternal  life  is  not  spoken 
of  as  an  inheritance,  but  as  a  boon.  "  By  grace  are 
ye  saved  through  faith,  and  that  not  of  yourselves : 
it  is  the  gift  of  God."  Immortality  is  something 
to  be  sought  after,  and  that  which  is  to  be  sought 
is  not  a  thing  which  we  should  have  in  any  case. 
"To  them  who  by  patient  continuance  in  well 
doing  seek  for  glory  and  honor  and  immortality, 
eternal  life." 

I.  But  in  the  converse,  it  does  not  promise  to 
the  bad  eternal  death,  but  "indignation  and  wrath," 
tribulation  and  anguish. 

H.  It  does  not,  however,  deny  eternal  death  ; 


LARVA    LESSONS.  79 

and  you  must  distinguish  between  a  non-asser 
tion  and  a  denial.  God's  indignation  and  wrath, 
man's  tribulation  and  anguish,  are  not  incom 
patible  with  final  death.  Rather,  we  might  sup 
pose  death  must  result  from  them.  At  any  rate, 
the  Bible  predicates  immortality  of  God  alone. 
"  Who  only  hath  immortality."  Now,  supposing 
man  to  have  been  originally  made  capable  of 
living  forever,  but  by  some  sin  to  have  forfeited 
this  ability,  would  it  not  be  a  most  divine  work, 
one  worthy  of  the 

"  Strong  Son  of  God,  immortal  Love," 

to  devise  a  scheme  by  which  this  forfeited  life 
might  be  restored  ?  Does  it  seem  a  little  thing  for 
millions  of  beings,  with  so  great  capacities,  to  be 
rescued  from  nothingness  and  redeemed  to  bright 
and  ever-brightening  life,  becoming  more  and  more 
like  Him,  and  enjoying  Him  and  themselves  for 
ever?  I  rather  think,  if  it  was  a  glorious  thing 
for  God  to  make  the  world,  it  was  a  far  more 
glorious,  as  it  was  a  far  more  difficult,  thing  for 
Him  thus  to  make  it  over. 

I.  Yet  the  belief  in  immortality  is  universal. 
Not  only  the  educated  and  the  religious,  but  the 
low  and  vile,  savages  and  barbarians,  to  whom  the 
Gospel  has  never  been  offered,  who,  certainly,  ac 
cording  to  your  theory,  must  have  forfeited  their 
immortality  for  their  own  selves,  even  if  Adam 
had  never  done  it  for  them,  and  who  have  never 


80  SUMMER  REST. 

so  much  as  heard  that  there  is  a  chance  for  its 
recovery,  and  who  therefore  ought  to  know  noth 
ing  about  it,  —  even  they  have  their  theory  of  a 
future  life.  No  nation  or  tribe  has  ever  been 
found,  I  have  read,  so  degraded  as  not  to  have 
some  notion,  however  gross,  of  a  God  and  of  im 
mortality  ;  and  this  instinct  of  immortality  is,  I 
should  surely  think,  a  premonition  of  immortality. 
And  besides  this  inborn  instinct  you  have  the 
creeds  of  all  Pagandom  and  all  Christendom.  It 
is  impossible  that  a  belief  so  wide-spread  should 
be  utterly  baseless. 

H.  I  do  not  know  which  will  be  the  strongest 
answer,  —  to  deny  your  facts  or  to  account  for 
them.  You  may  have  your  choice. 

I.  I  will  have  both,  first  one  and  then  the  other. 

H.  First,  then,  I  will  deny  them,  and  declare 
that  the  belief  in  immortality,  so  far  from  being 
universal,  is  rare.  Even  at  the  present  time  our 
own  people  hardly  believe  in  it,  let  alone  the  old 
Pagans.  Religious  persons  think  it  is  wicked  to 
talk  of  a  future  state  out  of  meeting.  Speak  of 
heaven  as  a  place  where  there  is  real  life,  actual 
talking  and  walking  and  working  and  playing 
and  planning  and  laughing  and  loving,  and  they 
are  shocked,  and  think  you  irreverent.  In  a  fu 
ture  solemn,  pale,  passionless  dream  they  believe, 
perhaps,  but  not  in  a  future  life.  For  a  life  with 
out  functions  is  no  life.  If  you  have  not  the  same 
capacities  in  another  world  that  you  have  in  this, 


LARVA    LESSONS.  81 

you  are  not  the  same  being,  and  if  you  are  not 
the  same  being,  it  is  not  a  resurrection  that  has 
occurred,  but  a  new  creation.  Most  of  the  persons 
whom  you  and  I  know  do  not  entertain  a  belief 
in  heaven  or  hell  sufficiently  vivid  to  influence 
materially  or  apparently  their  dealings  with  their 
fellow-men. 

I.  There  I  think  you  cannot  judge.  You  only 
see  how  people  live.  You  do  not  know  how  they 
would  live  if  they  had  no  such  belief.  You  might 
say  people  do  not  believe  in  law,  because  there  is 
so  much  thieving ;  but  if  they  believed  there  were 
no  law,  there  would  be  nothing  but  thieving. 

IT.  Your  case  is  not  quite  parallel,  but  it  can 
easily  be  made  so,  and  it  will  at  once  turn  against 
you.  The  point  on  which  a  thief  is  doubtful  is, 
not  the  existence  of  law,  but  the  possibility  of 
eluding  the  law.  The  point  on  which  the  world  is 
doubtful  is,  not  the  possibility  of  eluding  unending 
wretchedness,  but  its  existence.  All  agree  that 
if  it  is,  there  is  no  escape  for  him  who  is  doomed 
to  it.  If  a  thief  should  avow  that  he  believed 
there  was  no  escaping  the  law,  and  yet  after  a 
theft  he  should  seek  to  escape  it,  we  should  at 
once  infer  that  he  believed  it  might  be  escaped. 
So  when  men  say  they  believe  there  is  a  future 
life,  yet  act  as  if  there  were  none,  shall  we  not 
believe  their  acts  rather  than  their  words  ?  The 
price  of  gold  is  a  much  better  national  barom 
eter  than  fine  theorizing  about  prosperity.  And 


82  SUMMER  REST. 

if  we  who  have  lived  under  centuries  of  the 
Church  doctrine  of  inevitable  immortality  have  so 
faint  a  belief  in  it,  I  question  whether  it  is  so 
deep-seated  or  so  wide-spread  in  Pagandom  as  is 
generally  supposed.  The  old  poets,  indeed,  de 
scribe  a  posthumous  life  with  great  minuteness  ; 
but  undoubtedly  they  intended  it  should  be  re 
ceived  as  a  work  of  imagination,  not  a  narrative 
of  fact.  Milton  would  not  wish  his  account  of 
Pandemonium  or  the  battles  in  Heaven  to  be 
taken  as  parts  of  his  creed,  nor  did  Virgil  intend 
Octavia  to  receive  the  account  of  Marcellus  as  a 
truthful  narrative.  When  the  Greek  and  Latin 
poets  express  their  own  actual,  every-day  belief, 
it  is  chilling  and  uncomfortable  to  the  last  degree. 
And  even  their  poetical  conceptions  were  scarcely 
attractive.  Their  future  life  was  but  the  ghost 
of  life,  —  viewless  shades,  realms  of  night,  unsub 
stantial  all.  It  was 

"  Death,  and  great  darkness  after  death." 

All  that  Patroclus's  sad  shade  could  ask  of  Achilles 
was  proper  burial,  that  he  might  pass  through  the 
gloomy  gates  of  Hades.  Nothing  is  more  touch 
ing  than  the  calm,  hopeless  bravery  of  the  ancient 
men,  looking  upon  death  as  the  end  of  all,  yet 
cheering  each  other  on  to  meet  it  as  brave  men 
should.  It  was  according  to  nature  ;  it  was  in 
evitable.  To  fear  it  was  unmanly;  and  so  they 
gathered  their  mantles  around  them,  and  slept  the 


LARVA   LESSOXS.  S3 

iron  sleep.     But  there  was  no  joy,  no  hope,  no 
anticipation. 

Bavovros 


The  sole  consolation  that  Horace  conld  bring 
to  Maecenas  was,  not  a  prospect  of  future  re 
union,  but  that  the  same  day  should  bring  death 
to  both,  —  ruinam.  how  meaning  a  term  !  and 
all  beyond  the  tomb  were  but  falndce  manes. 
Cicero  was  to  find  comfort  for  Tullia's  death  in 
remembering  that  there  were  no  youths  in  Rome 
worthy  of  being  her  husband.  Christ  seems  never 
so  bright  and  blessed  as  when  he  brings  life  and 
immortality  to  light  through  his  Gospel,  —  brings 
the  warm  sun  of  heaven  for  the  ghostly,  ghastly 
twilight  of  these  old  sepulchral  worlds.  The  best 
and  wisest  among  the  ancients  seem  never  to  have 
got  beyond  a  perhaps. 

I.  Plato  had  arrived  at  the  doctrine  of  im 
mortality. 

H.  Plato  reasoned  out  a  doctrine  — 

/.  We  have  good  authority  for  saying  that  he 
reasoned  well. 

H.  Poetical,  not  logical  authority.  Because  the 
soul  does  not  depend  upon  the  body,  he  inferred 
that  it  could  exist  without  the  body,  —  which  it 
may  do  abundantly,  and  yet  not  be  immortal.  But 
he  assumed  that  it  held  within  itself  the  principle 
of  life,  —  a  groundless  assumption,  though  a  wi-o 
man  made  it.  For  no  man  knows  what  the  prin 
ciple  of  life  is. 


84  SUMMER  REST. 

I.  Still,  death  is  the  greatest  shock  that  we 
know  of;  and  if  death  does  not  destroy  the  soul, 
if,  as  you  admit,  the  soul  is  independent  of  the 
body,  how  do  you  know  that  Plato  was  not  right 
in  predicating  of  it  immortality  ?  If  it  survive 
death,  why  may  it  not  survive  anything?  If  it 
live  after  that,  why  may  it  not  live  forever  ? 

H.  Plato  was  right  in  reasoning  thus  from  what 
he  knew.  I  should  be  wrong,  because  I  have  light 
that  Plato  never  had.  Plato  saw  only  by  his 
inward  light.  I  have  the  word  of  God,  saying 
the  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die.  There  is 
another  hero  of  the  old  world,  Marcus  Aurelius, 
the  noblest  Roman  of  them  all ;  yet  he  can  only 
say  "  about  death :  whether  it  is  a  dispersion,  or  a 
resolution  into  atoms,  or  annihilation,  it  is  either 
extinction  or  change,"  'and,  at  best,  his  change  is 
only  every  part  of  him  being  reduced  into  some 
part  of  the  universe,  and  that  again  changing  into 
another  part  of  the  universe,  and  so  on  forever. 
And  when  his  great  heart  stoops  to  take  in  some 
"vulgar  comfort"  for  the  dread  doom,  it  is  not 
in  considering  the  goodness  of  those  he  is  going 
to  meet,  but  the  badness  of  those  he  is  to  leave. 
Do  you  find  here  any  such  belief  in  immortality 
as  you  can  well  build  a  system  on  ?  And  these, 
you  must  recollect,  are  the  high-water  marks. 
These  are  the  opinions  of  the  foremost  men  of 
all  their  time.  Where,  then,  will  you  be  likely  to 
find  the  rank  and  file  ? 


LARVA   LESSONS.  85 

I.  In  Valhall  and  Vingolfa  I  should  be  sure,  to 
find  them. 

H.  Sipping  mead,  not  to  say  blood,  from  the 
skulls  of  the  foes  they  had  slain  in  battle. 

I.  Still,  inadequate,  gross,  grotesque,  and  horri 
ble  as  these  conceptions  are,  you  have  under  them 
all  the  one  idea  of  future  unending  life. 

H.  But  so  distorted  as  to  be  a  mockery,  a  humil 
iation,  a  sorrow,  —  apart  from  the  fact  that  we  do 
not  know  how  firm  or  broad  a  hold  it  had  upon 
the  common  people.  But  see  now,  we  all  admit 
that  man  is  capable  of  being  made  immortal,  and 
that  without  any  organic  change.  Christ  only  re 
deems  from  sin  ;  he  does  not  make  an  angel.  Man, 
then,  must  have  been  originally  adapted  to  immor 
tality.  He  sinned,  and  thereby  forfeited  it.  But 
is  it  strange  that  the  tradition  of  his  lost  estate 
still  clings  to  him,  the  ghost  of  his  forfeited  im 
mortality  haunts  him,  —  no  longer  an  angel  to 
comfort,  but  a  demon  to  vex  ?  Is  not  this  phan 
tom  of  immortality  which  has  always  flitted  around 
the  grave,  —  at  best  a  cold,  shadowy,  eluding 
shape,  a  horror,  and  never  a  hope,  —  is  it  not  just 
such  a  phantom  as  we  might  suppose  man's  dis 
ordered  brain  would  evoke  ?  It  was  the  Devil 
who  first  taught  man  the  doctrine  of  his  immor 
tality,  and  that  in  God's  despite.  "  Ye  shall  not 
surely  die."  Satan  tempting  and  man  tempted 
put  their  heads  together,  and  Hades  and  Valhall, 
the  transmigration  of  souls,  haunted  houses  and 


86  SUMMER  REST. 

churchyard  wraiths,  are  the  pleasant  fruits  of  their 
copartnership. 

I.  But  does  it  not  seem  something  like  a  waste 
to  have  so  many  souls  made  and  so  few  come  to 
anything  ? 

H.  Apparently  that  is  the  Divine  way.  A  thou 
sand  seeds  are  formed  for  one  that  fructifies.  De 
struction  walks  hand  in  hand  with  production. 
Besides,  is  it  any  more  a  waste  for  souls  to  die 
out  than  it  is  for  them  to  live  in  ever-increasing 
and  hopeless  wretchedness  ?  Here  I  think  the 
old  Pagans  had  the  advantage  of  us.  Their  belief 
was  more  cheerful  than  ours.  Their  future  exist 
ence  was  indeed  only  a.  perhaps;  but  future  misery 
was  involved  in  the  uncertainty  of  this  perhaps, 
for  which  we  Orthodox  have  substituted  —  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  world  —  a  fearful  certainty. 

I.  But  we  do  not  impose  it  upon  the  world ; 
we  open  wide  to  all  the  gates  of  Heaven. 

H.  Knowing  that  the  greater  part  will  never 
enter.  What  inroads  does  the  Church  make  upon 
the  World  ?  How  much  larger  a  part  of  the  popu 
lation  of  the  earth  is  Christianized  now  than  was 
Christianized  ten,  twenty,  thirty  years  ago  ?  And 
how  much  more  is  the  Christianized  part  spirit 
ualized  ?  Remember,  the  point  is  not  now  by 
whose  fault  men  are  reduced  to  eternal  misery, 
but  the  fact  of  their  beino-  so  reduced.  And  I 

o 

maintain  that  the  pagan  no-faith  here  left  life 
more  comfortable  than  our  faith.  The  pagans, 


LARVA   LESSONS.  87 

moreover,  fell  back  on  nature.  They  reasoned 
that  death  was  natural,  and  therefore  ought  not  to 
be  dreaded ;  and  that  whatever  should  come  after 
it  would  be  natural,  and  need  give  them  no  concern. 
They  trusted  the  unknown  God.  There  is  some 
thing  touching,  sometimes  almost  sublime,  in  this 
sturdy  if  rather  blind  reliance,  —  this  tenacious 
clinging  to  the  best  they  knew  or  could  devise. 

I.  Yet  Orthodox  society  is  very  cheerful  and 
often  merry,  and  in  its  religious  life  and  aspiration 
not  seldom  exultant,  while  nothing  can  be  more  sad 
than  "heathenesse,"  if  we  may  judge  from  certain 
signs,  —  "Atalanta  in  Calydon,"  for  instance:  — 

"  Thy  limbs  to  the  leaf, 

Thy  face  to  the  flower, 

Thy  blood  to  the  water,  thy  soul  to  the  gods  who  divide  and 
devour." 

And  Marcus  Aurelius  you  confess  yourself  has  an 
"  o'ermastering  sadness." 

H.  Atalanta  is  neither  here  nor  there,  —  being 
but  a  modern's  imagination  of  the  ancient,  —  if  it 
were  not  far  too  tragic  to  be  a  representation  of 
the  ordinary  mood  of  the  Greeks.  Nor  am  I  say 
ing  that  the  ancient  was  less  cheerful  than  the 
modern,  but  that  ancient  orthodoxy  as  a  faith  was 
less  terrible  than  modern  orthodoxy.  Believers 
in  the  latter  are  happy,  just  as  far  as  we  do  not 
believe  or  do  not  comprehend  our  creed,  —  which 
gives  a  large  enough  margin  for  the  exigencies  of 
ordinary  society. 


88  SUMMER  REST. 

2.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  we  are  hypocrites  ? 

If.  Not  at  all.  Undoubtedly  we  think  we  be 
lieve.  Undoubtedly  some  do  believe  it,  and  the 
joy  of  life  has  died  out  of  them.  But  the  great 
majority  believe  only  on  the  outmost  thin  sur 
face  of  their  minds,  with  the  merest  hem  of  their 
soul's  garments,  —  believe  so  slightly  that  it  scarcely 
colors  their  thoughts,  not  to  say  influences  their 
life. 

I.  Your  positions  seem  to  have  some  force,  but 
probably  it  is  only  phenomenal.  It  is  but  an 
inglorious  victory  you  can  get  over  me ;  say 
these  things  to  a  minister,  or  some  one  who  knows 
a  great  deal,  and  I  dare  say  your  argument  would 
be  torn  into  shreds. 

If.  I  dare  say. 

/.  Tell  me,  now,  honestly  as  a  man,  and  not 
cautiously  as  a  controversialist,  do  you  believe  this 
doctrine  yourself?  When  you  began,  I  thought 
you  were  only  arguing  as  a  gymnast, — just  to 
show  how  much  might  be  said  on  the  side  of  an 
absurdity,  but  you  seem  to  be  quite  serious. 

H.  I  am  quite  serious,  though  I  do  not  say  that  I 
believe  the  doctrine  for  which  I  have  been  arguing. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  neither  do  I  disbelieve  it. 
I  will  say  this  for  it,  that  it  offers  the  most  satisfac 
tory  solution  of  the  great  problem  that  I  have  ever 
yet  seen.  It  is  the  easiest  way  out  of  the  diffi 
culty.  It  shows  how  God  may  be  just  to  the 
souls  he  has  made,  and  yet  it  does  not  attempt  to 


LARVA   LESSONS.  89 

wash  away  the  sins  of  the  world  with  rose-water. 
It  seems  to  me  a  doctrine  perfectly  natural  and 
reasonable.  It  is  at  one  with  God's  judgments  as 
we  see  them  executed.  It  only  carries  on  into 
another  world  the  same  laws  which  we  see  operat 
ing  in  this.  The  tendency  of  sin  is  to  destroy 
the  sinner.  Vice  is  suicidal.  Evil  is  fate.  Crime 
pulls  down  the  whole  man.  It  is  not  the  intellect, 
nor  the  physical  strength,  but  the  character,  which 
is  the  man.  It  is  the  spiritual  nature  which  is  to 
stand  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ,  and  it  is 
this  spiritual  nature  which  sin  wars  against  and  plots 
against,  and  perpetually  and  insidiously  destroys. 
Immortality !  Why,  how  many  people  one  con 
stantly  sees,  concerning  whom  the  wonder  is,  not 
that  they  should  finally  perish,  but  that  they  should 
have  been  suffered  to  live  at  all.  Have  you  not 
met  persons  who  seemed  to  be  mere  chemical 
compounds  ?  There  is  no  individuality  in  them, 
no  strong  flavor  of  a  soul.  When  their  chemistry 
fails,  they  disappear.  Take  away  the  salts  and 
gases,  and  there  is  nothing  left.  Their  souls  are 
but  nebulae,  —  a  fine  spiritual  film,  which  at 
death  one  imagines  must  simply  exhale.  There 
are  others,  more  pronounced,  but  with  so  pungent 
an  earth-smell  that  we  must  conclude  they  are 
not  yet  developed  out  of  the  gnome-state  into 
full  manhood.  What  use  they  subserve,  what 
glory  they  bring  to  their  Maker  beyond  the  beasts 
of  the  field,  it  is  difficult  to  see.  They  are  mere 


90  SUMMER  REST. 

earth-worms.  All  their  thoughts,  hopes,  plans,  are 
confined  to  the  earth,  —  very  often  to  one  little  cor 
ner  in  the  earth.  Shrewdness  they  may  have, 
and  industry  and  all  the  earthly  virtues.  Perhaps 
they  grow  rich  ;  perhaps  they  become  known ;  but 
of  the  qualities  that  do  not  pertain  to  earth,  of 
those  which  raise  the  soul  into  a  similitude  of  its 
Maker,  they  have  no  more,  to  all  appearance,  at 
life's  end  than  at  its  beginning.  Now,  if  a  man 
lives  seventy  years  without  having  made  a  start 
in  godliness,  what  reason  is  there  to  suppose  he 
will  make  a  start  in  seventy-thousand  years  ? 
And  if  a  man  is  good  for  nothing  in  this  world 
but  to  convert  grain  into  tissue,  what  is  there  for 
him  to  do  in  a  world  in  which  is  neither  grain  nor 
tissue  ?  Why  should  they  live  again  ?  It  would 
seem  to  be  more  economical  to  make  new  beings 
than  to  make  these  over.  I  see  much  more  rea 
son  for  the  resurrection  of  a  sagacious  and  faith 
ful  dog  than  for  that  of  his  foolish  and  faithless 
master. 

/.  If  he  could  rise  no  longer  foolish  and  faith 
less,  but  wise  and  loyal  to  God  and  man,  that 
would  be  a  justification. 

H.  But  I  see  no  ground  for  hoping  that,  either 
in  reason  or  revelation.  When  a  man  has  resisted 
all  the  promptings  to  good  which  this  world  offers 
him,  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  a  prospect  of  his 
yielding  to  any  promptings  to  good.  If  Christ's 
sacrifice  does  not  move  him,  nothing  will,  to  my 
thinking. 


LARVA  LESSONS.  91 

I.  But  the  poor  people  who  know  nothing  about 
Christ's  sacrifice  ? 

H.  We  can  very  safely  leave  them  in  the  hands 
of  their  Maker. 

I.  It  seems  to  me  we  are  getting  into  deep 
waters. 

H.  That  supposition  is  creditable  to  your  pene 
tration,  for  we  are,  and  should  speedily  be  —  if  we 
are  not  already  —  beyond  our  depth.  So  we  may 
as  well  make  for  dry  land  again ;  but  you  cannot 
fail  to  see  that  this  doctrine  of  eternal  death  mar 
shals  on  its  side  arguments  enough,  both  from  na 
ture  and  the  Bible,  to  give  it  an  honorable  claim 
on  every  man's  respect.  One  may  not  feel  called 
upon  to  investigate  it,  but  only  ignorance  or  bigotry 
can  revile  it. 

I.  Now  how  strange  it  is  !  The  caterpillars  led 
us  into  all  this  talk  of  death,  and  yet  the  butterfly, 
Psyche,  has  been  the  symbol  of  immortality  for 
thousands  of  years. 

H.  My  dear,  are  you  tired? 

I.  Tired  of  what  ? 

H.  O,  walking,  for  instance. 

I.  Not  that  I  know  of.     Why  should  I  be  ? 

H.  Perhaps  you  would  not  mind  running  into 
the  house  and  bringing  me  Whately's  Bacon.  I 
had  it  yesterday,  and  you  will  find  it  lying  about 
somewhere. 

As  I  was  curious  to  know  what  he  had  in  mind, 
I  brought  the  book,  and  he  read  the  following 


92  SUMMER  REST. 

extract  from  Whately's  annotations  to  the  essay 
"On  Death." 

"  Most  persons  know  that  every  butterfly  (the 
Greek  name  for  which,  it  is  remarkable,  is  the 
same  that  signifies  also  the  /SW,  —  Psyche)  comes 
from  a  grub  or  caterpillar ;  in  the  language  of 
naturalists,  called  a  larva.  The  last  name  (which 
signifies  literally  a  mask)  was  introduced  by  Lin 
naeus,  because  the  caterpillar  is  a  kind  of  outward 
covering,  or  disguise,  of  the  future  butterfly  with 
in.  For  it  has  been  ascertained  by  curious  micro 
scopic  examination,  that  a  distinct  butterfly,  only 
undeveloped  and  not  full  grown,  is  contained 
within  the  body  of  the  caterpillar  ;  that  this  latter 
has  its  own  organs  of  digestion,  respiration,  &c., 
suitable  to  its  larva-life,  quite  distinct  from,  and 
independent  of,  the  future  butterfly  which  it  en 
closes.  When  the  proper  period  arrives,  and  the 
life  of  the  insect,  in  this  its  first  stage,  is  to  close, 
it  becomes  what  is  called  a  pupa,  enclosed  in  a 
chrysalis  or  cocoon  (often  composed  of  silk  ;  as 
is  that  of  the  silkworm  which  supplies  us  that 
important  article),  and  lies  torpid  for  a  time  within 
this  natural  coffin,  from  which  it  issues,  at  the 
proper  period,  as  a  perfect  butterfly. 

"  But  sometimes  this  process  is  marred.  There 
is  a  numerous  tribe  of  insects,  well  known  to  natu 
ralists,  called  ichneumon  flies,  which  in  their  larva 
state  are  parasitical;  that  is,  inhabit  and  feed  on 
other  larvaB.  The  ichneumon  fly,  being  provided 


LARVA   LESSONS.  93 

with  a  long,  sharp  sting,  which  is,  in  fact,  an  ovi 
positor  (egg-layer),  pierces  with  this  the  body  of 
a  caterpillar  in  several  places,  and  deposits  her 
eggs,  which  are  there  hatched,  and  feed,  as  grubs 
(larvas),  on  the  inward  parts  of  their  victim.  A 
most  wonderful  circumstance  connected  with  this 
process  is,  that  a  caterpillar  which  has  been  thus 
attacked  goes  on  feeding,  and  apparently  thriving 
quite  as  well,  during  the  whole  of  its  larva-life, 
as  those  that  have  escaped.  For,  by  a  wonderful 
provision  of  instinct,  the  ichneumon  grubs  within 
do  not  injure  any  of  the  organs  of  the  larva,  but 
feed  only  on  the  future  butterfly  enclosed  within 
it.  And  consequently  it  is  hardly  possible  to 
distinguish  a  caterpillar  which  has  these  enemies 
within  it  from  those  that  are  untouched.  But 
when  the  period  arrives  for  the  close  of  the  larva 
life  the  difference  appears.  You  may  often  ob 
serve  the  common  cabbage-caterpillars  retiring,  to 
undergo  their  change,  into  some  sheltered  spot,  — 
such  as  the  walls  of  a  summer-house ;  and  some 
of  them  —  those  that  have  escaped  the  parasites  — 
assuming  the  pupa  state,  from  which  they  emerge 
butterflies.  Of  the  unfortunate  caterpillar  that  has 
been  preyed  upon  nothing  remains  but  an  empty 
skin.  The  hidden  butterfly  has  been  secretly  con 
sumed. 

"  Now  is  there  not  something  analogous  to  this 
wonderful  phenomenon  in  the  condition  of  some 
of  our  race  ?  May  not  a  man  have  a  kind  of 


94  SUMMER   REST. 

secret  enemy  within  his  own  bosom,  destroying 
his  soul,  Psyche,  though  without  interfering 
with  his  well-being  during  the  present  stage  of  his 
existence ;  and  whose  presence  may  never  be  de 
tected  till  the  time  arrives  when  the  last  great 
change  should  take  place  ?  " 

Z.  That  is  very  significant,  but  I  have  seen  it 
quoted  to  enforce  the  doctrine  of  eternal  woe. 

H.  It  might  be  quoted  to  enforce  direct  taxation, 
or  universal  suffrage,  or  the  high  prices  of  butter, 
or  anything  else  with  which  it  has  nothing  to  do. 

I.  I  wonder  what  the  consequences  would  be, 
if  a  belief  in  annihilation  were  substituted  for  that 
of  unending  misery  ? 

H.  I  suppose  you  know  that  question  is  not 
relevant. 

I.  I  know  that  it  does  not  concern  the  truth  of 
the  doctrine,  but  I  have  a  right  to  ask  it  as  an 
independent  question.  I  fancy  the  first  impression 
would  be,  that  a  restraint  had  been  removed  and 
that  sin  would  revel  unchecked. 

H.  Probably  the  impression  would  be  a  wrong 
one.  It  depends,  of  course,  ultimately,  upon  the 
facts.  If  eternal  life  in  suffering  is  the  fate  of  the 
unrepentant,  then  we  must  suppose  the  preaching 
of  that  doctrine  to  be  the  most  effectual.  But  as 
that  is  the  very  question  at  issue,  we  must  judge 
from  other  considerations.  There  is  this  first  to 
be  taken  into  account,  —  that  the  human  mind  is 


LARVA   LESSONS.  95 

unable  to  contain  the  doctrine  of  eternal  woe. 
You  may  see  a  community  where  it  has  been 
preached  from  time  immemorial,  where  the  con- 
;  trary  has  never  been  preached,  where  everybody 
believes  it ;  and  that  community  has  no  more  re 
ceived  it  as  a  part  of  its  real  faith  than  an  infant 
of  days.  It  lives  in  a  state  of  soggy  indifference 
to  it.  As  the  ancient  drew  calmness  from  nature, 
so  the  modern  draws  calmness  from  a  certain 
dogged  trust  that  he  shall  do  as  well  as  his  neigh 
bors.  His  belief  in  eternal  torments  produces  no 
appreciable  change  in  his  life.  He  does  not  think 
himself  a  Christian,  but  believes  he  shall  somehow 
get  to  heaven  when  the  time  comes.  A  congre 
gation  will  listen  to  a  sermon  of  the  most  solemn 
warning,  one  that  points  out  with  tenderness,  with 
real  powTer,  and  perhaps  in  a  truly  Christian  spirit, 
the  sure  doom  that  awaits  the  sinner.  There  will 
not  be  a  word  of  cavil,  nor  a  thought  of  opposition. 
The  congregation  will  be  attentive  and  hushed,  — 
and  will  go  home  in  an  hour's  time  as  "  chirp  "  as 
crickets,  and  look  after  their  farms  and  merchan 
dise,  next  day,  as  eagerly  as  if  hell  was  not  sup 
posed  to  yawn  before  them. 

/.  Yes,  I  remember  such  sermons  when  I  was 
little,  and  they  generally  ended  with  the  terrible 
assurance  that  some  one  of  us  mi^ht  die  that 

o 

very  day.  Nobody  could  tell  who,  but  I  always 
thought  it  might  mean  me,  and  was  sadly  scared. 
I  remember  how  I  used  to  watch  the  clock,  and 


96  SUMMER  REST. 

think  every  time  it  struck,  "  Well,  I  'm  not  dead 
yet."  Every  hour  I  lasted  over  was  so  much 
clear  gain,  and  I  was  always  so  glad  to  wake 
Monday  morning  and  find  I  was  alive  after  all 
As  I  found  I  never  did  die  on  these  occasions,  I 
rather  got  used  to  it  after  a  while,  and  took  it  as  a 
matter  of  course. 

H.  I  suspect  that  is  the  general  result  of  preach 
ing  righteousness  through  fear  of  death.  But  sup 
pose  any  member  of  this  congregation  knew  that 
his  wife  or  his  neighbor  was,  in  the  next  house, 
burning  in  a  fierce  fire,  yet  never  to  be  consumed, 
would  he  be  able  to  eat  his  dinner  and  drive 
his  team  and  be  interested  in  prices?  Yet  we 
profess  to  believe,  and  fancy  we  do  believe,  that 
a  very  large  number  of  our  kinsmen,  neighbors  or 
acquaintance  are  in  this  condition.  Rev.  Justin 
Doolittle,  who  ought  to  know,  says  that  a  few  hun 
dred  individuals,  actuated  by  the  love  of  money, 
are  annually  doing  very  much  more  to  demoralize 
and  destroy  the  Chinese,  than  all  the  millions  of 
Christian  believers  in  Christendom,  constrained  by 
the  love  of  Jesus,  are  doing  to  benefit  and  save 
them.  A  few  gentlemen  in  New  York  make  up 
a  purse  of  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  General 
Grant,  and  we  hardly  hear  of  it ;  but  all  the  Con 
gregational  Christians  of  the  North,  after  beating 
the  drum  and  blowing  the  trumpet  for  months, 
after  appealing  to  all  the  power  that  lies  in  simul 
taneous  action  and  in  the  associations  of  a  great 


LARVA   LESSONS.  97 

historic  day,  can  barely  raise  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars  to  build  up  the  waste  places  of  Zion  in  our 
own  country. 

I.  We  do  more  than  any  other  denomination, 
though. 

H.  That  is  not  to  the  purpose.  Notice  what  we 
do  in  connection  with  what  we  declare  ourselves 
to  believe,  —  how  much  of  faith  in  eternal  torment 
we  show  by  the  efforts  we  make  to  snatch  the 
world  from  it. 

/.  0,  we  are  so  constituted  that  we  cannot 
realize  the  idea.  There  would  be  no  living  if  we 
could. 

H*  That  is  just  what  I  say.  And  the  question 
is,  then,  Is  that  doctrine  likely  to  be  true,  which 
is  so  dreadful  as  to  be  intolerable  ?  Is  not  the 
fact  that  the  human  mind  instinctively,  though 
unconsciously,  rejects  it,  dulls  its  edge,  gets  over 
it  or  round  it  in  some  way,  an  indication,  at  least, 
that  it  is  not  the  true  doctrine  ?  How  can  that 
have  a  practical  bearing  on  life  which  must  be 
dismissed  before  life  can  be  endured  ?  In  human 
society  it  is  well  known  that  undue  severity  de 
feats  itself.  If  a  too  heavy  penalty  is  affixed  to 
a  law,  the  jury  fails  to  convict,  and  guilt  and 
innocence  go  alike  free.  A  moderate  punishment, 
sure  to  bo  inflicted,  is  far  more  efficacious  in  re 
pressing  crime  than  an  immoderate  one  from 
which  there  is  a  probability  of  escape.  So  here 
the  punishment  is  so  overpowering  that  the  mind 


98  SUMMER  REST. 

is  forced  to  reject  it,  and  rejects  along  with  it  all 
punishment  whatever.  Add  to  this  a  something 
arbitrary  and  extrajudicial  in  the  popular  notion 
of  future  punishment  and  you  have  at  once  an 
explanation  of  its  futility.  But  let  men  be  taught, 
with  a  stern  simplicity,  that  the  laws  which  they 
see  working  around  them  and  in  them  are  eternal 
laws ;  that  if  they  live  like  beasts  they  shall  die 
like  beasts  ;  that  where  their  treasure  is  their 
hearts  are ;  and  if  they  set  their  hearts  on  things 
of  time  and  sense  only,  time,  sense,  and  heart  will 
perish  together,  —  and  I  think  they  would  begin 
to  reflect ;  for  love  of  life  is  strong,  and  loss  of  life 
a  most  bitter  loss. 

I.  Yet  if  all  this  is  true,  how  comes  the  popu 
lar  doctrine  to  have  been  the  popular  doctrine  so 
long?  Would  God  let  the  truth  lie  lost  and  error 
so  prevail  ? 

If.  He  let  the  good  and  gentle  Queen  Isabella,  a 
lover  of  truth  and  of  her  country,  crush  the  one 
and  curse  the  other  for  centuries,  with  the  yoke 
of  the  Inquisition.  Why  was  the  good  and  great 
Marcus  Aurelius  suffered  to  approach  only  to  re 
press  that  Christianity  whose  spirit  was  so  in  unison 
with  his  own,  and  of  which  he  was  so  eminently 
fitted  to  be  the  apostle  before  the  world  ? 

I.  Matthew  Arnold  asks  the  same  question. 

H.  But  does  not  answer  it,  I  venture  to  say,  for 
it  cannot  be  answered.  It  concerns  some  princi 
ple  of  the  Divine  economy  which  we  have  not  yet 


LARVA   LESSONS.  99 

discovered.  All  our  attempts  to  explain  it  reveal 
the  limits  of  our  own  powers,  but  cast  no  light  on 
the  unknown  footsteps  of  God.  In  His  name 
must  be  our  final  trust,  —  God  the  Good. 

I.  Caterpillar,  how  little  you  know  what  a  com 
mentary  you  furnish  on  a  great  man's  words.  If 
you  could  but  understand  Latin  now,  what  com 
fort  you  might  take,  as  you  roll  along,  in  repeating 
Cicero's  dictum,  —  "  Etenim  omnes  artes"  —  what 
is  the  rest  of  it,  "have  as  it  were  a  common 
chain"?  I  recollect  the  sentiment,  but  forget  the 
words. 

H.  Qua?  ad  humanitatem  pertinent  —  a  little  far 
fetched,  still  —  Jiabent  quoddam  commune  vinculum; 
et,  quasi  cognatione  quddam,  inter  se  continentur ; 
but  you  might  have  said  it  yourself,  without  calling 
up  Cicero. 

/.  It  would  not  have  sounded  half  so  learned. 
Never  say  anything  in  English  when  you  can  say 
it  in  Latin. 

H.  Or  get  anybody  else  to  say  it  for  you. 

/.  I  wonder  where  the  caterpillars  get  their 
name  ? 

H.  Cat  for  their  fur,  pillar  for  their  shape,  and 
er  for  euphony. 

I.  Halicarnassus,  one  cannot  easily  decide  wheth 
er  your  turn  for  exegesis  or  etymology  is  the  more 
remarkable.     If  you  are  weighty  in  the  one,  you 
are  brilliant  in  the  other. 


FANCY    FARMING. 


WENT  out  one  morning  to  build  a 
barn.     Not  that  I  knew  exactly  how 

iff    to  build  a  barn,  but  I  knew  very  well 
y 
^   how   to   keep   up    a   clatter   till    some 

one  should  come  that  did  know,  which  amounts 
to  the  same  thing.  There  was,  indeed,  already 
a  barn  on  our  plantation.  It  was  there  many 
years  before  we  were.  I  ought  to  say,  a  part 
of  it ;  for  the  barn  is  a  conglomerate,  —  the  far 
ther  end  stretching  far  back  into  antiquity,  and 
the  hither  end  coming  down  to  a  period  which  is 
within  the  memory  of  men  still  living.  Of  course 
its  ancient  history  is  involved  in  obscurity;  but 
as  we  read  in  the  rocks  somewhat  of  the  earth's 
otherwise  unwritten  story,  so  in  our  barn  are  many 
marks  which  point  out  to  the  curious  student  the 
different  eras  of  its  creation.  The  main  line  of 
demarcation  comes  in  the  centre,  and  consists 
chiefly  of  a  kind  of  bulge.  That  part  of  the  front 
which  dates  back  to  the  Lower  Silurian  epoch  ran 
south-southwest,  but  at  some  time  during  the  Drift 


FANCY  FARMING.  101 

period  it  turned  to  the  right  about  and  drifted  to 
the  north-northeast.  The  result  is  a  bold  front, 
subtending  an  obtuse  angle.  People  who  have 
nothing  else  in  the  world  to  annoy  them  might 
afford  to  be  annoyed  by  this  departure  from  a 
right  line ;  but,  unless  one  is  reduced  to  such 
straits,  he  will  do  well  to  call  it  a  bow-window, 
and  be  at  rest,  —  which,  indeed,  it  is,  only  the 
window  is  a  little  to  the  windward  of  the  bow. 

Viewed  in  certain  aspects,  an  old  barn  is  far 
superior  to  a  new  one.  If  you  build  a  new  barn, 
you  have  no  resources.  It  is  all  finished,  and  you 
know  where  you  are.  There  is  a  place  for  every 
thing,  and  everything  in  its  place.  There  is  no 
use  in  looking  for  anything.  If  it  is  not  where 
it  belongs,  it  will  not  be  anywhere.  An  old  barn, 
on  the  contrary,  is  a  mine  of  wealth.  It  has 
nooks  and  corners  full  of  rubbish  waiting  to  be 
turned  to  all  manner  of  beautiful  use.  Do  you 
want  a  shingle,  a  board,  a  door,  a  window,  a  log, 
a  screw,  a  wedge  ?  There  are  heaps  and  piles 
of  them  somewhere,  if  you  do  not  mind  cobwebs. 
The  old  barn  has  a  sort  of  sympathy  with  you, 
welcomes  you  to  secret  recesses,  and  never  snubs 
you  with  primness  when  you  are  at  a  pinch :  not 
to  mention  the  dove-cotes,  and  the  martins'  nests, 
and  the  mouse-holes,  and  the  lurking-places  loved 
of  laying  hens. 

I  will  tell  you  a  very  romantic  story,  too,  about 
this  old  barn.  Once,  a  great  many  years  before 


102  SUMMER   REST. 

any  of  as  were  born,  there  lived  on  this  plantation 
a  charming  young  princess,  beloved  by  all  who 
knew  her.  One  day  the  king  sent  word  that  he 
was  coming  down  to  sup  with  her.  But  it  so 
happened  that  on  the  day  the  king  was  to  come 
to  supper  the  princess  and  all  her  household  were 
to  be  away  on  an  excursion,  which  was  called,  in 
the  somewhat  homely  language  of  that  day,  a 
"  clam-bake."  However,  the  princess  concluded 
to  go  to  the  clam-bake,  and  come  home  in  season 
to  sit  with  the  king  at  supper.  So  they  cooked 
mightily  beforehand ;  for  it  was  the  fixed  law 
of  royal  suppers  in  that  day  to  have  cream-toast, 
the  cream  flowing  in  rivers,  cheese  and  jelly, 
pound-cake,  and  plum-cake,  and  cranberry-tart, 
and  three  kinds  of  pie,  mince,  apple,  and  squash, 
or  die  !  Whereat  the  people  of  other  countries 
laughed ;  but  they  ate  the  suppers,  for  all  that, 
—  the  starvelings,  —  and  came  again.  So  the 
pies  were  all  made  with  elaborate  scalloped 
edges,  and  the  hoar-frost  of  the  cake ;  and  all 
was  set  carefully  away,  awaiting  the  eventful 
hour,  and  the  princess  and  her  household  went 
forth  and  locked  the  doors  behind  them.  And 
when  the  time  was  fully  come,  the  princess  left 
the  clam-bake,  and  waited  by  the  roadside  till 
the  king  came  by,  arid  then  they  both  went 
together  to  the  princess's  house.  And  as  they 
went  up  the  steps  to  the  house,  the  charming 
young  princess,  who  never  drank  tea  herself,  said 


FANCY  FARMING.    •  103 

seductively  to  the  king,  "  Do  you  mind,  if  you 
don't  have  tea  ?  It  is  a  great  trouble  every  way, 
and  the  self-denial  will  do  you  good."  And  the 
king,  lured  into  a  wrong  story  by  the  music  of 
her  voice,  suppressed  a  rising  sigh,  and  said  no,  it 
was  no  matter.  And  then  the  princess  unlocked 
the  door,  and  essayed  to  go  in ;  but  though  the 
door  was  unlocked,  it  refused  to  open.  And 
suddenly  the  unhappy  princess  bethought  herself 
that  she  had  locked  the  door  upon  the  inside, 
and  bolted  it,  and  herself  passed  out  through  the 
postern-gate,  of  which  her  lord  high- steward  still 
held  the  key.  So  there  they  were.  Then, 
troubled,  they  marched  hither  and  thither  around 
the  house  with  stately  and  majestic  step,  trying 
every  door  and  window,  and  finding  every  avenue 
of  approach  barricaded  except  the  sink-nose,  which 
Libby  prisoners  might  try,  intent  on  getting  out, 
but  not  a  constitutional  monarch,  however  anxious 
to  get  in.  As  two  mice,  lurking  near  the  full 
cheese-safe,  prowl  around  the  crevices,  braving 
cold  and  darkness  in  the  middle  of  the  night ; 
safe  on  the  shelf  the  cheese  reposes,  unmindful ; 
they,  fierce  and  heedless  with  anger,  rave  against 
it  out  of  reach  and  emit  a  squeal ;  a  rage  for 
eating,  collected  from  a  long  fast,  and  throats  dry 
from  curd,  urge  them  on  :  not  otherwise  anger 
inflamed  the  king  and  princess  surveying  the  walls, 
and  anguish  burned  in  their  bones  ;  by  what  way 
they  might  obtain  access  ;  in  what  manner  they 


104  SUMMER   REST. 

might  dislodge  the  rations  shut  up  in  inaccessible 
places.  Nequicquam  !  They  could  only  look  at 
each  other  with  a  wild  surmise,  and  then,  un 
friended,  melancholy,  slow,  betake  themselves  to 
the  rude  shelter  and  frugal  fare  of  the  barn. 
Then  the  scene  suddenly  changed.  The  west 
ering  sun  came  serenely  in.  The  dreamy  mist 
of  graceful  cobwebs,  festooning  and  fantastic, 
and  many  a  tiny  window  all  adust,  softened  his 
brilliancy  to  a  dim,  religious  light.  The  brown 
old  rafters  shone,  amber-hued,  in  that  mellow 
glory.  The  rough  floors  were  fretted  gold.  A 
hundred  summer  sunsets  glowed  in  the  yellow 
corn  that  lay  massed  in  ridged  and  burnished 
splendor.  Mounds  of  apples,  ruddy  and  round, 
loaded  the  air  with  their  rich  fragrance.  In 
numerable  clover-blossoms,  succulent  with  evening 
dews  and  morning  showers,  impurpled  in  the  dusky 
silence  of  June  nights,  and  cut  down  with  all  their 
sweetness  in  them,  treasured  up  their  dense  deli- 
ciousness  for  balm-breathed  cows,  but  did  not  dis 
dain  to  flood  our  human  sphere  with  tides  of 
pleasant  perfume.  Meeting  and  mingling  with 
these  dear  home-scents  came  gales  from  far  Spice 
Islands  and  Araby  the  Blest,  breathing  over  wild 
Western  seas,  to  be  tangled  in  pungent  grasses 
and  freight  with  welcome  burden  our  rustic  gon 
dolas.  (I  mean  English  hay  and  salt  hay.)  And 
there,  soothed  into  exceeding  peace  by  Nature's 
lullaby,  borne  into  ethereal  realms  on  her  clouds 


FANCY  FARMING.  105 

of  unseen  incense,  all  through  the  golden  afternoon 
sat  the  king  and  princess,  discoursing  dreamily  of 
the  time 

"  when  men 

With  angels  may  participate,  and  find 
No  inconvenient  date,  nor  too  light  fare ; 
And  from  these  corporal  nutriments  perhaps 
Our  bodies  may  at  last  turn  all  to  spirit." 

While  ever  and  anon  a  squat  old  hen  or  an  elegant 
young  rooster  would  hop  up  the  steps  and  tread 
into  the  rooms,  looking  curiously  at  the  unwonted 
sio-ht,  whereat  the  king  would  rise  from  his  throne 

O         '  O 

on  an  old  cider-cask,  and  make  a  right  royal 
speech,  "  Go  to  !  base  intruder  !  "  —  emphasizing 
his  peroration  by  hurling  an  ear  of  corn  at  his 
visitors,  which,  as  our  wayward  sisters  were  wont 
to  say,  when  our  generals  had  done  them  a  par 
ticularly  bad  turn,  was  just  what  they  wanted. 
So  the  afternoon  sang  itself  peacefully  away  ;  only 
the  princess  was  of  an  evil  mind,  and  would  mar 
the  king's  pleasure,  when  he  was  solacing  himself 
with  a  remainder-biscuit  brought  in  the  princess's 
basket  from  the  clam-bake,  by  saying,  "  Do  you 
see  that  window  ?  There  is  the  closet  where  the 
cake  is  kept.  Just  behind  that  clapboard  stands 
the  jar  of  jam.  Two  feet  to  the  right,  I  should 
think,  reposes  a  cranberry-tart,  the  crust  flaky  and 
fantastic  as  a  January  snow-wreath,  the  jelly  rich 
and  red  as  the  curve  of  Fantasirna's  lip  "  ;  and 
then  the  king  would  roll  his  eyes  around  at  her 

5* 


106  •    SUMMER  REST. 

in  a  fine  frenzy,  and  gnaw  his  crust  with  a  still 
more  wrathful  despair.  And  that  is  the  end  of 
my  romance  of  the  barn. 

Still,  it  must  be  confessed,  an  old  barn  is  not 
without  its  disadvantages,  which  the  impartial  his 
torian  must  not  pass  silently  by.  It  shakes  won 
derfully  in  a  high  wind.  You  hardly  dare  drive 
a  nail  anywhere,  for  fear  the  whole  edifice  should 
rattle  down  over  your  head.  We  desired  to  set 
up  in  the  loft  one  of  Dr.  Dio  Lewis's  jumping- 
machines ;  but,  upon  minute  investigation,  Hali- 
carnassus  said  no,  —  with  the  first  antic  we  should 
find  ourselves  in  the  barn-cellar.  In  short,  an 
old  barn,  in  an  advanced  stage  of  disintegration, 
must  be  treated  as  tenderly  as  a  loveress.  (There 
seems  to  be  a  movement  now-a-days  towards  the 
introduction  of  feminine  nouns  ;  so  I  venture  to 
make  my  contribution.) 

When  the  seeds  were  to  be  sown,  it  became 
necessary  to  shut  up  the  hens,  —  necessary,  but 
difficult.  I  closed  the  door  myself  every  night 
with  unwearied  assiduity,  but  bright  and  early 
every  morning  came  the  homely  hens  and  the 
stately-stepping  rooster,  treading  and  pecking  as 
innocently  as  if  they  had  never  suspected  they 
were  on  forbidden  ground.  I  instituted  a  search 
one  day :  and  no  wonder  they  got  out !  We 
might  have  barricaded  the  door  to  our  heart's 
content,  and  they  would  have  tossed  their  crests 
in  scorn.  For  there,  directly  under  their  perch, 


FANCY  FARMING.  107 

was  a  great  hole  in  the  side  of  the  edifice.  Hole 
do  I  say  ?  It  was  many  holes  run  into  one.  Hole 
was  the  rule,  and  barn  the  exception.  It  was 
vacancy  bounded  by  a  rough,  serrate-dentate  coast 
of  decayed  boards.  It  is  little  to  say  chicken, 
—  a  condor  might  have  contemplated  imprison 
ment  there  undismayed.  Of  course  reparation 
must  be  made,  or  farewell,  dream  of  early  peas ! 
At  the  same  time,  the  evil  to  be  remedied  was 
so  overgrown,  and  a  monster  evil  to  be  disposed 
of  is  so  much  greater  an  undertaking  than  a  mere 
new  measure  to  be  carried,  that  I  think  it  no 
exaggeration,  but  at  worst  only  what  we  classic 
writers  call  synecdoche,  to  say,  as  I  did  at  the 
beginning  of  this  paper,  that  I  went  out  to  build 
a  barn. 

What  brilliant  success  would  have  crowned  he 
roic  effort,  if  knowledge  had  been,  as  the  old  copy 
books  used  to  say  it  was,  power !  It  was  clear 
enough  what  needed  to  be  done,  and  there  was 
abundance  of  material  to  do  it  with,  —  plenty  of 
boards,  —  a  little  rough,  to  be  sure,  —  and  plenty 
of  nails,  —  a  little  rusty.  But  boards  are  so 
uncommonly  heavy  !  and  a  ladder  affords  a  foot 
ing  at  once  so  contracted  and  so  uncertain  !  and 
a  hammer  has  such  a  will  of  its  own,  coming 
down  with  ill-timed  fervor  in  the  most  unexpected 
places !  And  when  a  board  has  been  lifted  and 
pulled  by  main  force  into  position,  it  takes  both 
hands  to  hold  it  there  ;  and  then  how  are  you 


108  SUMMER   REST. 

going  to  drive  in  the  nails  to  make  it  stay,  I 
should  like  to  know,  especially  with  your  ladder 
continually  threatening  a  change  of  base  ?  I  am 
confident,  moreover,  that  our  boards  were  made 
of  mahogany,  or  some  other  impenetrable  sub 
stance ;  for  when,  by  dexterous  manipulation,  by 
close  crowding  up  against  them,  and  holding  them 
up  with  my  elbows,  I  at  length  proceeded  to  strike 
an  effective  blow,  do  you  think  the  nail  went  in  ? 
Not  in  the  least.  It  did  everything  else.  It 
doubled  up,  it  snapped  short,  it  plunged  about 
frantically  whenever  it  was  touched,  to  say  noth- 
ino-  of  the  not  innumerous  occasions  on  which  the 

O 

stroke  aimed  at  its  unprincipled  head  fell  with 
crushing  force  —  elsewhere.  Then  my  strength 
would  begin  to  fail,  and  the  board  would  slowly, 
slowly  slide  away  from  me,  till  I  let  it  go,  and 
it  dashed  with  a  crash  to  the  ground. 
Here,  to  use  the  language  of  the  poet,  — 

"  A  man  I  know, 
But  shall  not  discover, 
Since  ears  are  dull, 
And  time  discloses," 

was  aroused  to  unwonted  activity  by  the  pounding, 
and  sauntered  out  into  the  midst  of  the  melee.  I 
do  not  know  how  long  he  had  been  watching  me ; 
for  I  was  so  absorbed  in  my  architectural  problem 
as  to  be  dead  to  the  outer  world  ;  but  into  the 
recesses  of  my  complications  penetrated  a  sound 
which  seemed  very  much  like  what  the  world's 


FANCY  FARMING.  109 

people  call  a — a — a  —  snicker!  I  looked  around, 
and  there  he  was.  Very  sober,  very  blameless, 
having  very  much  the  air  of  being  just  arrived ; 
but  could  my  ears  deceive  me  ?  Then  up  spake 
I,  cheerily,  "  O  Halicarnassus,  you  are  just  in 
time  to  hold  this  board  steady  while  I  hammer 
it  on,"  —  as  if  I  had  that  moment  adjusted  it  for 
the  first  time.  He  took  his  stand  under  the 
ladder,  and  held  on  as  I  told  him,  with  a  beautiful 
docility.  I  did  not  hurry  in  selecting  a  nail ;  for 
he  was  strong,  and  I  thought  it  would  do  him 
good  to  be  in  an  uncomfortable  position  a  little 
while,  particularly  as  I  was  not  quite  satisfied 
about  the — half-suppressed,  broken  laugh  (defini 
tion  of  snicker  given  by  "  The  Best"). 

Carpentry  was  far  easier  after  this,  yet  pro 
gress  was  not  what  you  could  call  rapid.  The 
ladder  was  short,  and  I  had  to  reach  up  painfully  ; 
but  I  should  not  mind  my  arms  aching,  I  informed 
my  apprentice,  if  it  were  not  that  all  the  splinters 
and  dust  and  rubbish  that  my  hammer  struck  from 
the  old  boards  marched  straight  into  my  uplooking 
eyes. 

"You  might  keep  your  eyes  shut,"  suggested 
he. 

"  But  then,"  I  responded,  "  I  could  not  see 
how  to  strike." 

"Never  mind,"  said  he,  tenderly;  "you  would 
hit  just  as  well." 

"Oh,  that  way  madness  lies  !  " 


110  SUMMER  REST. 

The  upshot  of  it  was,  that  he  bestirred  himself, 
and  turned  that  barn  into  a  marvel  of  art.  It  had 
been  a  barn :  it  became  a  villa.  An  immense 
wooden  sarcophagus,  —  only  nobody  had  ever  been 
deposited  in  it,  —  perhaps  it  was  a  horse-trough  in 
its  day,  —  was  set  up  "  on  end,"  and  turned  into  a 
three-story  house.  Fresh,  sweet-smelling  hay  was 
piled  on  each  floor,  and  such  attractive  little  nests 
were  scooped  out  therein,  that  a  hen  of  a  domestic 
turn  of  mind  would  go  there  and  lay,  just  for  the 
fun  of  it,  you  might  suppose.  Then  the  porticos, 
and  the  sliding-doors,  and  the  galleries,  and  the 
hospital,  and  the  vistas,  and  the  palisades,  and  the 
inner  and  outer  courts,  —  every  arrangement  that 
heart  of  hen  could  wish,  both  for  seclusion  and  for 
society,  —  why,  those  fowls  might  have  dreamt 
they  dwelt  in  marble  halls  every  night  of  their 
lives,  and  not  have  been  very  far  out  of  the  way ! 
And  the  summer  residences  that  he  made  for 
them,  —  little  Gothic  cottages  built  for  a  single 
family,  with  all  the  modern  conveniences,  and  a 
good  many  more  improvised  on  the  spot,  and  with 
this  signal  advantage  over  similar  structures  at 
Newport  and  Nahant,  —  that  you  can  take  them 
under  your  arm,  and  carry  them  wherever  you 
please. 

Before  finally  leaving  my  hen-coop,  will  a  gen 
erous  public  pardon  me  for  recurring  to  the  subject 
of  crowing  hens?  It  may  possibly  be  remembered 
that  a  little  while  ago  I  hazarded  a  doubt  as  to 


FANCY  FARMING.  Ill 

the  existence  of  any  such  lusus  naturce.  Since 
that  time  proof  has  accumulated  upon  me  from 
different  quarters  that  crowing  hens  do  exist. 
But  let  it  be  noted,  that  the  gist  of  my  remarks 
was  the  inconsistency  of  the  tyrant  man.  Now 
see  whether  an  admission  of  the  disputed  fact  re 
lieves  him  from  the  guilt  charged  upon  him. 
Observe  once  more  the  couplet,  — 

"  A  whistling  girl  and  a  crowing  hen 
Always  come  to  some  bad  end,"  — 

a  couplet  which,  I  affirm  without  fear  of  contradic 
tion,  endeavors  to  affix  a  stigma  upon  the  charac 
ter  of  crowing  hens ;  for  what  sinister  and  ulterior 
purpose  I  scornfully  refrain  from  designating. 
Fourteen  crowing  hens  have  reported  themselves 
to  me :  one  from  Maine,  two  from  New  Hamp 
shire,  three  from  Massachusetts,  one  each  from 
Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  North 
Carolina,  and  four  from  Pennsylvania.  Of  these 
fourteen,  — 

Number  One  is  "  Bobby,  an  excellent  Biddy. 
Lays  nice  large  eggs,  and  brings  up  her  families 
well." 

Number  Two,  named  Queen  Mab.  Always 
crows  to  the  music  of  a  sweet-voiced  Steinway. 
Is  in  all  other  respects  an  amiable  and  exemplary 
hen. 

Number  Three  is  a  black  hen,  now  three  years 
old.  Has  laid  eggs. 

Number  Four  crowed  regularly  every  morning, 


112  SUMMER  REST. 

when  the  cock  did.  When  she  was  a  little  over 
a  year  old,  she  and  her  seven  babes  were  stolen 
from  a  wild-cherry-tree,  where  they  went  to  bed, 
by  a  fox,  who  came  up  on  an  old  log. 

Number  Five  crowed  irregularly.  Raised  sev 
eral  broods  of  chicks.  Lived  to  be  four  or  five 
years  old. 

Number  Six  crowed  chiefly  in  the  fall,  when 
the  young  chicks  were  practising  (no  doubt  to 
encourage  them).  Lived  to  the  remarkable  age 
of  nine  years,  and  was  then  decapitated. 

Number  Seven  raised  a  large  brood  of  chickens. 
Their  papa  was  killed  at  about  the  time  for  them 
to  begin  to  crow,  and  one  morning  she  flew  up 
on  the  fence  and  crowed  with  all  her  might.  Con 
tinued  it  until  they  had  learned,  and  then  stopped. 
Was  called  Old  Sam.  Her  end  was  the  soup-pot. 

Number  Eight",  an  old  speckled  hen.  Took  to 
crowing  after  a  raid  on  the  poultry-yard  had  de 
prived  it  of  every  rooster.  Crowed  as  well  as 
anybody. 

Number  Nine  lived  twenty-five  years  ago.  Wit 
ness  has  forgotten  whether  she  ever  did  anything 
but  crow.  Had  a  wicked  name,  which  I  shall  not 
give. 

Number  Ten  laid  eggs. 

Number  Eleven  crowed  repeatedly  and  often 
spunkily  after  the  roosters  had  been  killed,  never 
while  they  were  alive. 

Number  Twelve  crows  sometimes  in  the  pres- 


FANCY  FARMING.  113 

ence   of  the  rooster,   chiefly  when   alone.     Most 


energetic  in  crowing. 


Numbers  Thirteen  and  Fourteen  have  simply 
the  fact  of  their  existence  recorded. 

Now,  mere  proverb-mongers,  bear  in  mind : 
In  the  whole  country  only  fourteen  well-defined 
crowing  hens,  —  at  the  worst,  not  a  very  crying 
evil. 

Of  the  fourteen,  only  one  is  recorded  as  having 
come  to  a  bad  end,  and  that  end  had  no  connec 
tion  with  the  crowing,  but  occurred  while  she 
was  engaged  in  the  faithful  discharge  of  her  ma 
ternal  duties. 

Seven  are  reported  as  bearing  an  excellent  do 
mestic  character,  a  blessing  to  the  society  which 
they  adorned.  Against  the  remaining  seven  not 
a  syllable  of  reproach  is  breathed ;  but  if  there 
had  been  any  evil  thing  in  them,  who  believes  it 
would  not  have  been  learned  and  conned  by  rote 
and  cast  into  our  teeth  ? 

In  the  case  of  five,  their  crowing  was  not  only 
innocent,  but  a  pre-eminent  virtue,  a  manly  crown 
set  upon  every  feminine  excellence. 

Inconsistency  ?  It  is  a  white  and  shining  word 
for  the  black  quality  to  which  I  applied  it. 

Men,  the  indictment  is  quashed.  You  are 
ruled  out  of  court.  Take  your  couplet  and  de 
part,  giving  thanks  that  you  are  not  prosecuted 
for  defamation  of  character. 

While   the   architect  and  the  hens  were   thus 


114  SUMMER  REST. 

revelling  in  the  halls  of  the  Montezumas,  I  turned 
my  attention  to  the  more  modest  purpose  of  pro 
viding  accommodations  for  the  tomatoes.  All  our 
efforts  in  that  line  hitherto  had  been  comparative 
failures.  "  It  is  a  good  thing  to  take  time  by  the 
forelock,"  I  had  remarked  to  a  subordinate,  as 
early,  I  should  think,  as  February,  perhaps  Janu 
ary,  and  begun  planting  a  great  many  seeds  in 
boxes,  which  were  set  in  the  sunshine  under  the 
kitchen  windows.  A  great  many  shoots  came  up, 
and  then  a  great  many  flocks  and  herds  of  little 
green  things  oozed  out  of  them  and  began  to 
creep  over  them,  evidently  with  the  design  of 
eating  them  up.  This  would  never  do.  I  bor 
rowed  a  bound  volume  of  the  old  "  New  England 
Farmer,"  from  a  young  New  England  farmer,  — 
the  worst  thing  in  the  world  to  do,  let  me  say  to 
all  amateur  farmers.  Use  every  lawful  means  of 
perfecting  yourself  in  your  profession,  but  on  no 
account  touch  an  agricultural  journal.  They  be 
wilder  an  honest  heart  into  despair.  They  show 
the  importance  and  the  feasibility  of  so  many 
things,  every  one  of  which  is  full  of  interest, 
profit,  and  pleasure,  that  you  know  not  where  to 
begin  ;  and  instead  of  doing  one  thing,  you  dream 
of  a  dozen.  I  sent  the  "  New  England  Farmer  " 
home,  and,  according  to  advice,  bought  a  handful 
of  tobacco,  put  it  on  a  shovel  and  set  fire  to  it, 
and  smoked  the  young  shoots  thoroughly,  —  as 
well  as  the  house  and  all  that  therein  was.  The 


FANCY  FARMING.  115 

experiment  succeeded  perfectly.  Any  way,  it 
killed  the  tomatoes.  I  am  not  so  sure  about  their 
colonists,  but  I  do  not  believe  they  long  survived 
the  destruction  of  their  Arcadia.  "It  is  just  as 
well,"  I  said,  to  encourage  one  whose  spirits  de 
pend  upon  me.  "  It  is,  indeed,  far  better.  There 
are  many  kind  people  in  cities,  who  will  sow  the 
seeds,  and  tend  the  plants,  and  take  all  the 
trouble,  and  give  us  as  many  plants  as  we  want, 
for  fifty  cents."  Which,  indeed,  they  did, — 
and  I  set  the  plants  out  duly  in  a  square.  But 
they  are  delicate,  and  need  protection  from  un 
timely  summer  frosts.  Thriftless  people  put  up 
stakes,  bushes,  and  such  hand-to-mouth  contriv 
ances,  and  perhaps  throw  an  old  apron  or  a  frag 
ment  of  a  table-cloth  over  them.  Practical,  but 
prosaic  people,  cover  them  with  pots  and  pans 
during  their  fragile  infancy ;  all  of  which  makes 
an  unsightly  feature  in  a  landscape.  I  built  a 
conservatory.  And  here  let  me  say  to  all  my 
young  friends  who  may  design  to  devote  them 
selves  to  rural  pursuits,  Do  not  be  narrowly  con 
tent  with  the  utilities,  nor  count  the  hours  spent 
upon  the  beautiful  as  .time  lost.  For  aught  we 
know,  the  fields  might  be  just  as  fruitful,  if  they 
put  forth  only  a  gray  and  dingy  sedge.  Instead 
of  which,  we  have  their  green  and  velvet  loveli 
ness  starred  all  over  with  violet  and  daisy  and 
dandelion.  A  hen-house  is  no  less  serviceable 
because  built  in  the  Gothic  style  with  suites  of 


116  SUMMER  REST. 

rooms.  A  rough,  nomadic  tent  of  poles  and  rags 
gives  no  surer  protection  to  your  tender  herbs 
than  the  stately  and  beautiful  conservatory.  That 
is  why  I  built  a  conservatory.  The  walls  were 
of  brick :  there  was  a  pile  of  bricks  in  a  corner 
of  the  barn.  The  roof  was  of  glass :  there  was 
a  pile  of  superannuated  windows,  ditto,  ditto. 
The  edifice  was  not  quite  so  firm  as  might  be 
desired,  owing  to  the  fact  of  there  being  no 
underpinning  nor  cement ;  nor  did  its  sides  not 
sometimes  deviate  from  strictly  right  lines,  as  they 
were  obliged  to  yield  to  the  undulations  of  the 
soil ;  but  it  was  at  least  classical,  —  brick  and 
windows.  The  only  serious  trouble  with  it  was, 
that  one  fine  morning  it  ceased  to  be  conservative 
at  all,  but  became  revolutionary  to  the  last  degree, 
—  utterly  subversive,  in  fact,  of  the  existing  order 
of  things.  Why,  the  calves  got  in  over  night 
and  turned  everything  topsy-turvy.  Their  hoofs 
crushed  in  the  walls  and  roof,  and  the  walls  and 
roof  between  them  crushed  the  tomato-plants,  so 
that  architecture  and  horticulture  were  involved 
in  a  common  ruin.  We  knew  it  was  the  calves, 
because  their  juvenile  tracks  were  all  about.  Be 
sides,  there  were  the  calves.  It  turned  out  to 
be  of  no  account,  for  that  proved  to  be  a  bad 
year  for  tomatoes,  so  we  should  have  had  none 
in  any  event,  and  were  saved  all  the  trouble  of 
cultivating  them,  while  the  calves  had  a  free 
frolic,  poor  things.  To  be  sure,  they  have  a  fine 


FASCY  FARMINGS  \\1 

court-yard  for  exercise,  a  vestibule   for  noonday 

lounging,  and  snug  quarters  for  sleep  and  shelter ; 

but  as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever 

shall  be, 

"  Fredome  is  a  noble  thing ! 
Fredome  mayss  man  to  haiff  liking : 
Fredome  all  solace  to  man  giffis : 
He  levys  at  ess,  that  frely  lerys ! 
A  noble  calf  may  haiff  nane  ess, 
Na  ellys  nocht  that  may  him  pless, 
Gyff  fredome  faflyhe :  for  fine  liking 
Is  vharnvt  our  all  othir  thing. 
Xa  he,  that  ay  hass  levyt  fire, 
3Iay  nocht  knaw  weill  the  propyrte, 
The  angyr,  na  the  wrechyt  dome, 
That  is  cowplyt  to  foule  thyrldome. 
Bot  gyff  he  had  assayit  it, 
Than  all  perquer  he  snld  it  wyt : 
And  sold  think  fredome  mar  to  pryss, 
Than  all  the  gold  in  warld  that  is." 

And  if  these  wayward  children  of  the  earth  could 
find  any  way  of  escape  from  their  gilded  fetters, 
and  wander  out  under  the  beautiful  star-sown 
heavens  into  the  wilderness  of  night  to  taste  the 
sweets  of  liberty,  and,  if  yon  please,  of  license, 
who  can  find  it  in  his  heart  to  blame  them? 
Farmers  ought  not  to  restrict  their  thoughts  to 
human  motives.  We  should  endeavor  sometimes 
to  look  at  things  with  the  eyes  of  a  cow,  an  ox, 
a  chicken,  and  so  learn  to  have  more  consideration 
for  and  sympathy  with  these  younger  brethren  of 
ours,  —  these  children  of  a  common  Father.  The 
earth  is  theirs  as  truly,  if  not  as  thoroughly,  as 


118  SUMMER  REST. 

it  is  ours.  The  good  God  makes  grass  to  grow 
for  the  cattle  as  well  as  herb  for  the  service  of 
man.  All  the  beasts  of  the  field  are  His.  Un 
doubtedly  He  enjoys  the  happiness  of  every  lamb 
frisking  on  the  hillside  ;  and  not  a  bluebird 
flashes  through  the  morning,  not  a  swallow  twit 
ters  on  his  spray,  but  the  Creator  smiles  on  its 
glistening  beauty  and  listens  lovingly  to  its  song. 
"Doth  God  take  care  for  oxen?"  asks  Paul; 
and  looking  into  the  Bible,  as  well  as  abroad  over 
the  fertile  fields,  we  can  but  answer,  Yes ;  though 
Paul  himself  seems  to  incline  to  the  negative,  and 
to  consider  the  command  not  to  muzzle  the  ox 
when  he  treadeth  out  the  corn  as  given  altogether 
for  our  sakes.  Partly  for  our  sakes,  no  doubt, 
but  partly  also  for  the  comfort  of  the  toiling, 
patient  oxen ;  and  so,  probably,  would  Paul  say, 
were  the  question  fairly  put  to  him  from  the 
bovine  side.  So,  indeed,  in  effect  he  does  say, 
when  writing  to  Timothy  with  another  end  in 
view.  Perhaps  that  "  Original  Greek,"  to  whom 
commentators  and  expositors  are  so  fond  of  ap 
pealing  in  an  emergency,  may  yet  be  found  to 
help  us  out  of  our  difficulty  by  proving,  past  a 
cavil,  that  no  means  yes.  At  any  rate,  the  Bible 
shows  that  God  does  take  care  of  all  dumb,  un 
complaining  lives,  and  all  humble  human  crea 
tures,  —  and  shows  it  so  conclusively,  so  minutely, 
and  so  practically,  that  we  can  hardly  be  said  to 
need  any  supplementary  revelation  on  that  point, 


FANCY  FARMING.  119 

though  a  reverend  gentleman,  evidently  thinking 
otherwise,  has  written  what  he  modestly  terms  "  a 
scripture"  about  Timid  Tom  and  Old  Gurdy, — 
very  tender  and  touching,  yet  he  will  pardon 
me  for  saying  I  still  think  Matthew  rather  better 
adapted  to  the  rural  districts. 

So  we  will  remember  that  to  the  birds  our 
cherry-trees  are  a  true  Promised  Land,  where 
Nature  herself  invites  them  to  enter  in  and  take 
possession.  We  will  ever  bear  in  mind  that  Mooly 
and  Brindle  have  no  forecast  of  full  granaries 
to  console  them  for  present  deprivation,  and  that 
the  waving  corn-field  rustles  for  them,  and  for 
them  the  rich  rye  quivers,  and  they  do  but  obey 
their  highest  law,  when  they  pass  through  the 
carelessly  swinging  gate  and  feast  on  the  fatness 
of  the  land. 

In  fact,  our  three  little  calves  always  wrought 
their  mischief  with  such  winsome  grace  as  dis 
armed  anger  and  amply  repaid  us  in  amusement 
what  they  cost  us  of  trouble.  They  were  a  source 
of  unfailing  interest  and  wonder,  — 

"  A  phantom  of  delight, 
When  first  they  gleamed  upon  our  sight, 
A  lovely  apparition,  sent 
To  he  a  moment's  ornament." 

And  every  day  heightened  their  charms. 

Mr.  Henry  James,  illustrating  some  false  con 
ception  of  the  relation  between  God  and  man, 
somewhere  says,  "  You  simply  need  to  recall  the 


120  SUMMER  REST. 

relation  of  irksome  superintendence  on  the  one 
band,  and  of  utter  indifference  on  the  other, 
which  vivify  the  intercourse  of  a  farmer  and  his 
calves." 

v  to  Mr.  Henry  James,  as  a  general  rule, 
it  would  be  difficult  to  award  too  much  praise. 
The  river  of  his  speech,  rippling  through  summer 
shadows,  or  rushing  over  rocky  ways,  still  flows, 
like  Siloa's  brook,  fast  by  the  oracles  of  God. 
And  though  it  winds  sometimes  through  inac 
cessible  places,  and  you  tell  its  course  only  by 
its  music,  and  not  by  its  sparkle,  and  though  it 
channels  a  path  sometimes  through  murky  valleys 
whose  every  vapor  is  laden  with  pestilence,  yet 
you  know  that,  pure  and  purifying,  singing  through 
its  leafy  solitudes  and  shining  heavenly  clear  in 
Tophet  as  in  Tempe,  the  burden  of  its  song  is, 
Peace  on  earth,  good-will  to  man,  while  it  hastens 
on  to  mingle  its  crystal  stream  with  the  waters 
of  the  river  of  life. 

But,  Mr.  Henry  James,  good  and  wise  as  you 
are,  I  am  certain  you  never  owned  a  calf.  At 
least,  you  never  stood  in  confidential  relations 
to  one.  "Irksome  superintendence?"  You  did 
not  witness  the  welcome  we  gave  our  poor  little 
favorite,  torn  all  trembling  from  its  mother's  side 
by  the  stern  demand  of  some  greedy  purse  ;  how 
we  stroked  him,  and  patted  him,  and  —  begging 
your  pardon  —  scratched  his  head,  and  so  soothed 
away  his  sorrow  ere  he  was  aware ;  how  we 


FAXCY  FARMING.  121 

stayed  his  staggering  limbs,  and  because  he  was 
too  young,  and  knew  not  how  to  drink,  but  only 
stared  at  the  basin  and  at  us  and  vacancy,  in 
an  uncertain,  moonstruck  way,  did  I  not  put  my 
own  fingers  into  the  milk  and  draw  his  mouth 
down  to  them,  and,  deceived  by  the  pious  fraud, 
did  not  the  poor  little  hungry  innocent,  like  Dido 
of  old,  drink  large  draughts  of  love,  in  happy- 
ignorance  that  it  was  not  Nature's  own  arrange 
ment  for  such  case  made  and  provided  ?  Xo, 
Mr.  James,  —  where  it  is  a  question  of  absolute 
philosophy,  ordinary  cosmology,  noumenal  force, 
instinctual  relegation,  and  the  fundamental  an 
tithesis  of  Me  and  Not-Me,  you  shall  have  every 
thing  your  own  way ;  but  when  it  comes  to  live 
stock,  you  must  ask  me  first ! 

Such  a  mistake,  however,  is  not  unaccountable. 
Farming,  it  must  be  conceded,  is  in  some  respects 
a  hard-hearted  business,  little  calculated  to  cherish 
the  finer  feelings.  Separation  of  families  is  so 
common  a  thins  amono;  farmers  that  the  sio;ht  of 

O  ^  O 

sorrow  ceases  to  sadden.  Calves  are  taken  from 
their  mothers  at  a  tender  aov,  to  the  jjreat  trial 
of  both  mother  and  child ;  and  a  sufficient  excuse 
for  this  trampling  upon  Xature  is  supposed  to  be 
concentrated  in  the  one  word,  l^al.  All  last  night 
the  air  reverberated  with  the  agonized  lowings  of 
a  bereaved  cow  in  a  neighboring  pasture,  and  with 
the  earliest  dawn  there  she  stood  forlorn,  pressing 
her  aching  breast  against  the  cold,  dew-damp  gate, 

6 


122  SUMMER  REST. 

and  gazing  with  mournful  longing  up  the  road 
last  trodden  by  her  darling's  lingering  feet.  But 
it  is  all  right,  because — veal!  A  hen  may  be  sud 
denly  wrested  from  her  infant  brood  and  brought 
back  from  her  private  nest  into  the  dreary  pha 
lanstery,  because  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  thinks 
the  laying  of  eggs  a  more  important  thing  than 
the  cultivation  of  domestic  virtues.  To  the  exi 
gencies  of  "profit"  everything  else  must  give  way. 
The  result  can  but  be  deleterious.  The  peach- 
bloom  of  sensibility  is  presently  rubbed  off  by 
constant  trituration  of  harsh  utilities.  Only  yes 
terday  I  received  an  invitation  from  a  gentleman 
of  standing  and  character  to  visit  a  famous  farm ; 
and  one  of  the  inducements  expressly  held  out 
was  the  pleasure  of  seeing  a  hundred  sheep  from 
Canada,  with  a  hundred  little  lambs,  all  their 
respective  little  tails  cut  off  short.  What  a  re 
quest  was  there,  my  countrymen  !  For  why 
were  those  little  tails  cut  off,  in  the  first  place  ? 
and  if  they  were  cut  off,  why  should  any  humane 
person  be  invited  to  see  such  a  spectacle  of  man's 
rapacity  ?  It  must  have  been  sheer  wantonness. 
You  sometimes  prune  away  sundry  branches  of  a 
tree,  to  make  the  rest  of  it  grow  better ;  but 
will  there  be  any  more  to  a  leg  of  mutton  because 
it  had  no  tail  ?  No,  sir.  When  I  go  a  sheep- 
gazing,  I  want  to  see  the  sheep  walking  about 
with  dignity  and  comfort,  and  coming  home,  as 
little  Bo-Peep  wanted  hers,  bringing  their  tails 
behind  them. 


FANCY  FARMING.  123 

What  we  can  we  do  to  stem  this  tide  of  demor 
alization.  We  have  never  set  our  hearts  upon 
taking  the  first  prize  at  any  fair  for  anything. 
We  do  not  count  upon  deriving  great  pecuniary 
strength  from  contact  with  our  Mother  Earth. 
But  upon  this  one  thing  we  have  determined, — 
that  every  creature  on  our  plantation,  which  is 
allowed  to  live  at  all,  shall  live  as  far  as  possible 
in  the  enjoyment  of  every  bounty  which  Nature 
bestowed  upon  him.  No  dumb  life  shall  be  the 
worse  for  falling  into  our  hands.  We  do  not  dis 
dain  to  study  the  nature  of  our  calves,  nor  to  grati 
fy  their  innocent  whims.  One  refuses  milk  and 
chooses  water :  water  is  always  provided.  An 
other  exults  in  apples,  bread,  and  fried  potatoes, 
and  eats  them  from  your  hand  with  most  winsome 
confidence.  They  dislike  the  confinement  of  their 
parade-ground,  yearning  to  roam  over  the  grassy 
knolls,  to  snuff  the  scent  of  the  clover-blossoms, 
to  drink  the  dew  from  buttercups,  to  lie  on  the 
velvet  turf  and  let  the  summer  soak  through  their 
tough  hides  and  penetrate  their  inmost  hearts. 
How  calm  then  are  their  beautiful  mazarine  blue 
eyes  !  What  deep  content  relaxes  every  fibre  of 
their  breathing  bodies!  How  happily  the  days 
of  Thai  aba  go  by !  They  seem  to  have  attained 
to  a  premature  tranquillity,  the  meditative  mood 
of  full-grown  kine.  But  if  sometimes  the  morn 
ing  wine  of  June  leaps  through  their  veins  with 
a  strange  vigor  in  its  pulse,  you  shall  see  how 


124  SUMMER  REST. 

bravely  their  latent  youthfulness  asserts  itself. 
Frisking  with  many  an  ungainly  gambol,  they 
dash  across  the  orchard,  bending  their  backs  into 
an  angle,  brandishing  their  tails  aloft,  jerking,  but 
ting,  pushing,  and  jostling  each  other,  in  joy  too 
intense  for  expression. 

In  truth,  Nature  is  fond  of  her  little  joke  as 
well  as  the  rest  of  us,  though  the  actors  in  the 
comedy  do  not  always  discern  the  comic  element 
in  it.  Strange  how  ridiculous  anything  may  be, 
and  yet  not  have  the  smallest  suspicion  that  it  is 
ridiculous.  As  when,  for  instance,  one  of  these  lit 
tle  "  Bossy  calves,"  fumbling  and  smelling  around 
a  chair,  got  his  head  between  the  rounds  of  the 
lower  part  and  could  not  get  it  out  again.  He 
did  not  see  the  point  of  the  joke  at  all,  but  stum 
bled  about,  shaking  his  head  wildly,  and  wedging 
it  in  more  firmly  with  every  struggle.  It  was 
no  easy  matter  to  get  near  enough  to  help  him  ; 
and,  in  spite  of  his  terror  and  impatience  of  the 
situation,  one  could  but  laugh  at  the  figure  he 
made.  I  remember  once  seeing  a  pretty  little 
yellow-bird  on  the  fence  looking  as  if  he  had  three 
legs.  A  three-legged  bird !  —  this  must  be  attended 
to.  I  crept  near  enough  to  resolve  the  third  leg 
into  his  tail,  on  which  he  had  settled  himself,  lean 
ing  backward  in  a  persistent  determination  to 
swallow  a  huge  worm,  which  was  just  as  per 
sistently  determined  not  to  be  swrallowed.  Birdie 
gulped  and  wormie  wriggled.  Birdie  looked  very 


FANCY  FARMING.  125 

solemn,  and  wormie  very  angry.  Birdie  would 
not  give  up,  and  wormie  would  not  go  down. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  fun,  but  I  had  it  all  to 
myself.  Once  a  caterpillar  hung  his  cocoon  to  my 
\vindow-sash,  and  I  determined  to  keep  my  eye 
on  him  and  see  him  begin  life  as  a  butterfly.  I 
watched  him  week  after  week  without  detecting 
any  change,  and  upon  consulting  the  text-books 
of  Natural  History,  found  that  he  had  probably 
reached  middle  age,  as  butterflies  count  time,  be 
fore  I  began  to  suspect  he  had  been  born  at  all. 
But  did  the  little  sprite  know  I  was  watching  him? 
Did  he  creep  out  on  the  farther  side,  and  shut 
the  door  behind  him  carefully,  and  steal  slyly 
around  the  corner  of  the  house  for  his  wings  to 
dry,  and  come  peeping  down  from  the  roof  every 
day,  laughing  in  his  sleeve  to  see  me  watching 
that  empty  nest?  And  did  he  tell  the  story  to 
his  friends  at  some  butterfly  dinner-party,  and 
did  they  laugh  at  me  till  the  tears  ran  from  their 
wicked  little  eyes,  and  say,  in  butterfly  jargon, 
what  a  "  sell "  it  was,  and  pat  him  on  the  shoulder, 
and  call  him  "  a  sad  dog  "? 

Driving  in  Natick  one  day,  I  observed,  in  some 
of  the  pleasant  grounds  which  ornament  that  town, 
a  very  nice  little  contrivance  ;  —  a  coil  of  fence 
you  might  call  it,  made  of  iron  wire,  capable  of 
being  rolled  and  unrolled,  and  so  enabling  you 
to  make  an  enclosure  when  and  where  you  chose. 
Set  your  fence  down  on  one  part  of  the  lawn, 


126  SUMMER  REST. 

turn  in  your  lambs,  and,  when  they  have  cropped 
all  the  grass,  remove  the  establishment  to  another 
place.  I  represented  very  ably  and  vividly  to 
my  prime  minister  the  advantages  of  such  a  fence 
to  our  calves  and  to  ourselves.  It  gives  them 
at  once  the  freedom  of  the  turf,  yet  does  not 
loose  them  beyond  our  control.  And  then  it  looks 
so  picturesque ! 

"  Yes,"  said  he,  briskly,  "  we  must  have  one." 

u  That  we  must !  "  I  responded  with  enthusi 
asm,  delighted  at  his  ready  acquiescence.  Not 
that  a  non-acquiescence  would  have  made  any 
difference  in  the  result,  but  the  process  would 
have  been  more  tedious. 

The  next  morning  he  called  me  out,  with  great 
flourish  of  trumpets,  to  see  The  Iron  Fence. 

"  It  is  not  possible,"  I  said,  in  astonishment. 
"  You  have  had  no  time  to  send." 

"  No,  —  I  made  it,"  he  replied,  boldly. 

"  You  !  "  still  more  astonished.  u  I  knew  there 
was  a  tangle  of  iron  wire  in  the  barn,  but  '„ 
looked  rusty." 

He  made  no  reply,  only  whistled  me  on  as  if  I 
were  his  dog,  —  he  often  >does  that,  —  and  I  fol 
lowed,  musing.  The  iron  fences  that  I  had  seen 
showed  a  fine  tracery,  delicate  and  graceful,  seem 
ingly,  as  the  cobwebs  on  the  morning  grass  :  could 
they,  like  these,  be  woven  in  a  single  summer 
night  ?  The  sequel  will  show.  I  appeared  upon 
the  scene.  A  single  slender  iron  pole  was  driven 


FANCY  FARMING.  127 

into  the  ground :  one  end  of  a  piece  of  rope  was 
fastened  to  it,  the  other  end  encircled  the  necK 
of  our  little  black,  woolly  calf,  Topsy,  who  was 
describing  great  circles  around  the  pole,  in  her 
frenzy  to  escape. 

"Sir,"  said  I,  after  a  somewhat  prolonged  si 
lence,  "  it  is  the  old  crow-bar." 

"  No,"  said  he,  confidently,  "  it  is  an  Iron 
Fence,  —  such  as  they  have  in  Natick.  Only," 
he  added,  after  a  short  pause,  and  as  if  the 
thought  had  just  occurred  to  him,  "  perhaps  theirs 
is  the  old-fashioned  centripetal  kind.  This  is  the 
New  Centrifugal  Iron  Fence  !  " 

Kindness  to  animals  is,  like  every  other  good 
thing,  its  own  reward.  It  is  homage  to  Nature, 
and  Nature  takes  you  into  the  circle  of  her  sym 
pathies  and  refreshes  you  with  balsam  and  opiate. 
We,  too,  delight  in  green  meadows  and  blue  sky. 
Resting  with  our  pets  on  the  southern  slope,  the 
heavens  lean  tenderly  over  us,  and  star-flowers 
whisper  to  us  the  brown  earth's  secrets.  Ever 
wonderful  and  beautiful  is  it  to  see  the  frozen, 
dingy  sod  springing  into  slender  grass-blades,  pur 
ple  violets,  and  snow-white  daisies.  The  lover 
deemed  it  a  token  of  extraordinary  devotion,  that, 
when  his  mistress  came  by,  his 

"  dust  would  hear  her  and  beat, 
Had  I  lain  for  a  century  dead ; 
"Would  start  and  tremble  under  her  feet, 
And  blossom  in  purple  and  red." 


128  SUMMER  REST. 

But  no  foot  so  humble,  so  little  loved,  so  seldom 
listened  for,  that  the  earth  will  not  feel  its  tread 
and  blossom  up  a  hundred-fold  to  meet  her  child. 
And  every  dainty  blossom  shall  be  so  distinctly 
wrought,  so  gracefully  poised,  so  generously  en 
dowed,  that  you  might  suppose  Nature  had  lav 
ished  all  her  love  on  that  one  fair  flower. 

As  you  lie  on  the  grass,  watching  the  ever- 
shifting  billows  of  the  sheeny  sea,  that  dash  with 
soundless  surge  against  the  rough  old  tree-trunks, 
marking  how  the  tall  grasses  bend  to  every  breeze 
and  darken  to  every  cloud,  only  to  arise  and  shine 
again  when  breeze  and  cloud  are  passed  by,  there 
comes  through  your  charmed  silence  —  which  is 
but  the  perfect  blending  of  a  thousand  happy 
voices  —  one  cold  and  bitter  voice,  — 

"  Golden  to-day,  to-morrow  gray  : 
So  fades  young  love  from  life  away ! " 

O  cold,  false  voice,  die  back  again  into  your  outer 
darkness !  I  know  the  reaper  will  come,  and  the 
golden  grain  will  bow  before  him,  for  this  is  Na 
ture's  law ;  but  in  its  death  lies  the  highest  work 
of  its  circling  life.  All  was  fair  ;  but  this  is  fairest 
of  all.  It  dies,  indeed,  but  only  to  continue  its 
beneficence  ;  and  with  fresh  beauty  and  new  vigor 
it  shall  blossom  for  other  springs. 

Fainter,  but  distinctly  still,  comes  the  chilling 
voice,  — 

"  Though  every  summer  green  the  plain, 
This  harvest  cannot  bloom  again." 


FANCY  FARMING.  129 

False  still !  This  harvest  shall  bloom  again  in 
perpetual  and  ever-increasing  loveliness.  It  shall 
leap  in  the  grace  of  the  lithe-limbed  steed,  it 
shall  foam  in  the  milk  of  gentle-hearted  cows,  it 
shall  shine  in  the  splendor  of  light-winged  birds,  it 
shall  laugh  in  the  baby's  dimple,  toss  in  the  child's 
fair  curls,  and  blush  in  the  maiden's  cheek.  Nay, 
by  some  inward  way,  it  shall  spring  again  in  the 
green  pastures  of  the  soul,  blossoming  in  great 
thoughts,  in  kindly  wrords,  in  Christian  deeds,  till 
the  soil  that  cherished  it  shall  seem  to  seeing 
eyes  all  consecrate,  and  the  Earth  that  flowers 
such  growths  shall  be  Eden,  the  Garden  of  God. 


A  COUNCIL  ABOUT  A  COUNCIL. 


>E  had  been  talking  of  the  National 
Council.  I  shall  not  explain  what 
that  is,  though  there  are  people  who 
affect  not  to  know.  I  would  only 
suggest  modestly,  and  in  an  undertone,  that  the 
National  Council  can  much  better  afford  not  to 
be  known  by  any  person,  than  any  person  can 
afford  not  to  know  it.  Rarely  is  there  witnessed 
a  scene  6f  more  deep,  wide,  and  overpowering 
interest  than  that  which  happened  one  June  day 
in  the  Mount  Vernon  church,  in  Boston,  when 
America  met  England  in  open  court,  and  with 
calm  voice  read  out  to  her  the  list  of  her  wrong 
doings.  It  was  an  old  story.  It  had  rung  across 
the  sea  a  thousand  times,  and  returned  to  us  void ; 
but  heard  on  our  own  soil,  heralded  by  the  cheers 
of  a  victorious  army,  three  hundred  thousand 
strong,  it  sounded  after  quite  another  sort.  The 
England  that  had  sinned  cried  peccavi ;  the  better 
England,  that  had  fought  side  by  side  with  us 
bravely  against  the  sin,  joined  in  our  jubilate;  and 


A    COUNCIL  ABOUT  A    COUNCIL.        131 

then  Christian  America,  too  noble  to  overlook  an 
unrepented  or  to  remember  a  repented  wrong, 
gave,  amid  tears  and  cheers,  —  fierce  outburst  of 
an  excitement  that  would  not  be  suppressed,  — 
the  right-hand  of  forgiveness  and  Christian  fellow 
ship. 

There  was  another  hour  not  to  be  easily  for 
gotten,  or  lightly  remembered.  Two  hundred 
and  forty  years  and  more  after  the  landing  of  the 
Pilgrims  on  Plymouth  Rock,  with  winter  and  the 
Indian  in  front,  two  unkngwn  foes,  and  deadly  as 
unknown,  there  met  on  the  same  rock  a  goodly 
company,  the  flower  of  men  gathered  from  the 
Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  shores,  from  the  continent 
stretching  between,  and  from  beyond  the  seas,  — 

"  The  sons  of  sires  who  conquered  there 
With  arm  to  strike,  and  soul  to  dare, 
As  quick,  as  far  as  they  " ; 

and  on  that  rock,  the  sacred  shrine  of  Liberty 
in  this  young  Western  world,  they  gave  in  their 
joyful  adhesion  to  the  principles  which  had  borne 
the  fathers  through  their  long  agony  to  the  glo 
rious  end. 

The  appearance  of  the  Council  was  altogether 
impressive.  I  had  no  disposition  to  quarrel  with 
any  of  its  decisions,  or  if  I  had,  it  was  overborne 
by  the  weight  which  their  deliberation  and  ability 
carried.  But  a  friend  of  mine,  who  is  less  im 
pressible,  was  not  so  disposed  to  assent,  and  per 
sisted  in  asking,  Was  I  quite  satisfied  with  all  the 


132  SUMMER  REST. 

proceedings,  —  with  the  "Declaration  of  Faith," 
for  instance  ? 

I.  I  thought  I  was.  I  am  certainly  profoundly 
satisfied  with  its  promulgation  at  Plymouth  Rock. 

If.  That  is,  you  are  pleased  with  the  dramatic 
element ;  but  as  it  was  mainly  a  theological  and 
ecclesiastical  council,  convened  only  once  in  two 
hundred  years,  is  it  not  rather  desirable  that  its 
theology  should  be  of  no  uncertain  cast  ? 

I.  I  find  no  fault  with  its  theology.  The  Dec 
laration  of  Faith  seems  to  me  simple  and  sublime. 

H.  I  have  no  quarrel  with  its  sublimity,  but 
I  am  not  so  sure  on  the  simplicity  side.  We  de 
clare  our  adherence  to  the  faith  and  order  "  which 
the  synods  of  1648  and  1680  set  forth  or  re 
affirmed."  Have  the  goodness  to  tell  me  what 
that  faith  and  order  are. 

I.  Goodness,  indeed !  How  should  I  know  ? 
Are  they  published  in  Webster's  Spelling-Book, 
that  I  should  have  them  at  command  ? 

If.  Exactly.  Why,  then,  did  not  these  rever 
end  seigniors  state  our  own  points  of  faith,  and 
let  every  one  judge  for  himself,  rather  than  refer 
back  to  something  which  ninety-nine  persons  in 
a  hundred  have  no  means  of  reading,  and  which 
nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  in  a  thousand  never 
will  read. 

I.  I  suppose  it  was  done  partly  to  save  time 
and  trouble,  and  partly  for  the  express  purpose  of 
showing  the  world  that  the  faith  has  not  changed. 


A   COUNCIL  ABOUT  A    COUNCIL.        133 

H.  So  far  as  saving  time  and  trouble  is  con 
cerned,  it  would  have  saved  still  more  if  the 
Council  had  not  met  at  all.  It  is  poor  economy 
for  a  Council  to  save  time  by  not  doing  what  it 
was  expressly  convened  to  do ;  and  if  the  faith 
of  the  fathers  is  not  changed,  so  much  the  worse 
for  the  sons.  To  adhere  to  their  faith  can  hardly 
but  be  to  depart  from  their  spirit.  To  be  like 
our  fathers  is  not  to  do  what  they  did,  but  as  they 
did,  —  not  to  wear  their  clothes,  but  to  be  moved 
by  their  spirit.  They  searched  the  Scriptures,  and 
tried  to  frame  their  creeds,  and  guide  their  lives 
by  the  light  they  found  therein.  But  we  have 
been  searching  the  Scriptures  for  two  hundred 
years  more,  and  with  such  assistance  as  they  could 
not  command.  Bible  literature  has  been  wonder 
fully  improved  and  increased  since  their  time. 
Geography,  philology,  history,  travel,  criticism, 
have  all  made  the  sacred  text  a  focus  of  their 
light.  It  would  be  very  strange  if  all  this  illumi 
nation  had  brought  out  no  new  meaning,  —  if  our 
fathers  saw  as  much  in  their  darkness  as  we  in 
our  light.  The  Reverend  Assembly  of  Divines 
at  Westminster  were  undoubtedly  an  able  body 
of  men,  but  probably  less  able  than  the  body  assem 
bled  in  Ashburton  Place.  The  former  were  chosen 
at  random,  every  member  of  Parliament  selecting 
his  man.  The  latter  were  chosen  deliberately. 
each  man  by  the  community  around  him,  who 
knew  its  best  man,  and  would  have  every  motive 


134  SUMMER  REST. 

to  elect  him  its  delegate.  These  men,  the  flower 
of  all  the  churches,  would  have  done  an  act  much 
more  worthy  of  the  character,  and  suitable  to  the 
dignity  of  the  Council  which  they  composed,  had 
they  drawn  up  as  simply  and  comprehensively  as 
possible  a  Declaration  of  Faith  which  should  have 
expressed  the  present  belief  of  the  churches  in  the 
present  language  of  the  people,  instead  of  pinning 
their  faith  to  tSe  sleeves  of  the  Westminster  and 
other  Divines. 

I.  I  don't  recollect  that  there  was  anything  said 
about  Westminster  in  the  "  Declaration." 

H.  The  first  draft,  read  by  Dr.  Thompson,  men 
tioned  the  Westminster  Confession  and  Catechism. 
No  member  of  the  Council  made  any  opposition 
to  it,  that  I  know  of.  Probably  most  of  them 
agree  with  it.  Why  these  names  were  left  out  of 
the  final  draft  by  the  skilful  managers  of  the 
Council  I  do  not  know.  But  the  thorough  au 
thentication  of  them  is  there  under  the  innocent- 
looking  declaration  of  adherence  to  the  faith  and 
order,  "  which  our  synods  of  1648  and  1680  set 
forth  or  reaffirmed." 

I.  You  speak  as  if  there  were  something  sinis 
ter  in  the  matter,  wrhich  I  do  not  believe.  It  is  not 
the  way  of  our  people  to  do  things  under  the  rose. 
Besides,  what  motive  was  there  ?  We  all  believe 
the  Westminster  Catechism,  so  that  there  could 
have  been  no  intrinsic  objection  to  having  it  in 
serted  bodilv  into  the  Declaration. 


A    COUNCIL  ABOUT  A   COUNCIL.        135 

H.  You  subscribe  to  it,  do  you  ? 

I.  Certainly  I  do,  from  turret  to  foundation- 
stone, —  "  as  I  understand  it"  :  which  is  not  say 
ing  much,  to  be  sure. 

H.  Did  you  ever  happen  to  read  that  docu 
ment  ? 

I.  I  happened  to  learn  it  by  heart  when  I  was 
a  child,  and  repeated  it  to  the  minister,  and  got  a 
Bible  for  my  pains. 

H.  Then  perhaps  you  can  answer  the  question, 
"  What  is  the  work  of  creation  ?  " 

/.  Just  as  easy  as  nothing !  "  The  work  of 
creation  is,  God's  making  all  things  of  nothing 
by  the  word  of  his  power,  in  the  space  of  six 
days,  and  all  very  good." 

H.  You  believe,  then,  that  God  did  make  all 
things  in  six  days? 

I.  Not  exactly,  no ;  that  is,  not  as  we  now 
use  the  word  day.  But  the  Bible  says  "six  days," 
and  whatever  the  Bible  means  by  that  we  believe. 
The  only  question  is  as  to  what  the  Bible  does 
mean. 

H.  But  there  is  no  question  as  to  what  the 
Westminster  Divines  meant  by  six  days.  And 
what  they  meant  we  do  not  mean.  Therefore  we 
cannot  subscribe  to  their  statement. 

/.  But  this  is  a  mere  side-issue.  These  old 
Divines  knew  nothing  of  Geology,  and  took  the 
words  as  they  appeared  on  the  face  of  them,  just 
as  I  suppose  the  Jews  did. 


136  SUMMER  REST. 

You  know  we  are  not  obliged  to  take  the  Cate 
chism  with  strict  verbal  adherence,  but  only  for 
"  substance  of  doctrine,"  which  is  not  affected, 
whether  the  world  were  made  in  six  days  or  six 
ages. 

H.  Not  at  all ;  but  why  adopt  a  two-hundred- 
year-old  creed,  which  contains  and  must  contain 
all  the  incorrectness  of  its  age  ?  Our  own  gener 
ation  has  errors  enough  of  its  own.  Why  should 
it  adopt  also  those  of  its  ancestors  ? 

Here  is  another  question  that  trenches  hard  upon 
even  the  "  substance  of  doctrine." 

"  What  did  God  at  first  reveal  to  man  for  the 
rule  of  his  obedience  ?  " 

I.  "  And  so  forth,  —  the  moral  law." 

H.  "  Where  is  the  moral  law  summarily  com 
prehended?" 

I.  "  Ditto.     In  the  ten  commandments." 

H.  Yet  St.  Paul  says  that  when  the  Gentiles, 
which  have  not  the  law,  do  by  nature  the  things 
contained  in  the  law,  they  are  a  law  unto  them 
selves  ;  so  that,  in  spite  of  the  Westminster  Divines, 
we  believe  that  God  did  not  leave  himself  without 
witness,  even  before  the  ten  commandments  were 
issued,  or  where  they  had  never  been  heard  of. 

But  again,  "  What  is  required  in  the  fourth 
commandment  ?  " 

I.  "  The  fourth  commandment  requireth  the 
keeping  holy  to  God  such  set  times  as  he  hath 
appointed  in  his  word,  expressly  one  whole  day  in 
seven,  to  be  an  holy  Sabbath  to  himself." 


A   COUNCIL  ABOUT  A    COUNCIL.        137 

H.  "  Which  day  of  the  seven  hath  God  ap 
pointed  to  be  the  weekly  Sabbath  ?  " 

I.  Dear  !  dear  !  u  From  the  beginning  of  the 
world  to  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  God  appointed 
the  seventh  day  of  the  week  to  be  the  weekly 
Sabbath,  and  the  first  day  of  the  week  ever  since 
to  continue  to  the  end  of  the  world,  which  is  the 
Christian  Sabbath."  Now  do  not  ask  me  if  I  be 
lieve  that,  because  you  know  I  do  not.  But  in 
truth  I  did  not  think  anything  about  it.  I  forgot 
the  Catechism  said  anything  about  Sunday,  and  so 
I  dare  say  did  the  rest  of  the  Council. 

H.  "  The  rest  of  the  Council !  "  But  so  much 
the  worse  if  a  deliberative  assembly  subscribed  to 
they  knew  not  what. 

I.  They  only  subscribed  to  the  "substance  of 
doctrine."  Justification  and  sanctification  and  the 
atonement,  and  such  things,  were  what  I  suppose 
they  had  chiefly  in  mind. 

H.  What  I  have  in  mind  is,  that  a  fly  is  not  a 
proper  ingredient  in  a  pot  of  ointment,  and  that 
those  who  publish  a  recommendation  of  the  oint 
ment  ought  first  to  take  out  the  fly.  If  there 
were  as  much  untruth,  implied  and  direct,  in  the 
Westminster  Catechism  about  the  atonement  as 
there  is  about  this  matter  of  the  "  Christian  Sab 
bath,"  would  you  think  it  well  to  accept  the 
Catechism  by  wholesale,  and  say  nothing  about  it  ? 

I.  No,  and  I  do  not  think  it  was  well  as  it  is. 
I  am  sorry  they  did  it.  I  am  sorry  they  did  not 


138  SUMMER  REST. 

make  a  declaration  of  their  own  faith.  But  I  do 
not  believe  that  there  was  any  underhand  work 
about  it.  I  believe  the  framers  and  the  receivers 
of  this  declaration  were  scrupulously  honest  and 
upright,  and  that  they  had  no  design  whatever  to 
foist  any  doctrine  into  the  Church. 

H.  Neither  do  I  think  they  had;  but  it  is  a  pity 
they  did  not  avoid  the  appearance  of  evil.  The 
worst  I  think  or  suspect  is,  that  under  cover  of  the 
old  synod  they  hoped  to  avoid  discussions  which 
might  promise  to  be  unprofitable  and  interminable. 
But  it  seems  to  me  that  there  are  discussions 
which  ought  to  be  held,  unless  certain  matters 
quietly  change  themselves.  For  instance,  this  very 
one  of  Sunday.  I  suspect  the  reason  why  the 
Catechism  passed  muster  in  its  Sabbath  doctrine 
was,  not  simply,  as  you  say,  that  the  Council  did 
not  think  of  it,  —  though  that  fact  may  be  true,  — 
but  that  they  would  have  found  no  fault  with  it  if 
they  had  thought  of  it.  Probably  every  member 
of  the  Council  teaches  in  his  own  pulpit,  and  has 
taught  in  his  Sunday  school,  that  God  commands 
us  in  the  Bible  to  keep  the  first  day  of  the  week 
as  a  Sabbath.  It  is  not  discussed,  and  would  not 
have  been  discussed  had  it  been  brought  up,  be 
cause  it  is  a  settled  matter.  But  since  it  is  settled 
wrong  and  settled  mischievously,  it  ought  to  be 
unsettled. 

I.  I  do  not  believe  you,  it  is  my  painful  duty  to 
declare.  I  am  an  Orthodox  Congregationalist 


A    COUNCIL  ABOUT  A   COUNCIL.       139 

born  and  bred,  and  /  do  not  believe  that  God  any 
where  commanded  us  to  keep  the  Sabbath,  or  ever 
did  command  anybody  but  the  Jews  to  keep  it. 

H.  Then  you  do  not  believe  as  you  were 
taught. 

I.  If  I  have  changed  the  faith  to  which  I  was 
born,  the  change  has  been  so  gradual  that  I  have 
not  perceived  it. 

H.  If  you  would  go  into  your  next  "  teachers' 
meeting  "  and  state  your  views,  I  presume  the 
change  would  at  once  become  palpable. 

I.  No,  I  thank  you. 

H.  And  "  No,  I  thank  you "  say  others  on 
whom  such  a  course  lies  as  a  duty.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  in  the  aggregate  there  are  many  who 
see  the  inconsequence  of  the  popular  mode  of  rea 
soning,  but  say  nothing  about  it.  There  is  not  in 
the  whole  range  of  fallacies  a  more  absolute  non 
sequitur  than  that  which  imposes  the  Sabbath  upon 
Christians,  but  many  have  been  brought  up  in 
that  habit  of  thought,  and  pay  no  attention  to  the 
thought  itself ;  others  who  do  consider  it,  look  at 
it  with  their  traditions,  not  with  their  eyes,  and 
many  who  do  see  it,  do  not  care  to  take  the  trouble 
and  incur  the  obloquy  of  opposing  and  exposing  it. 
As  for  the  religious  newspapers,  they  are  con 
ducted,  not  in  the  interests  of  truth,  but  of  a  de 
nomination,  with  as  much  truth  as  that  denomina 
tion  may  happen  to  have  embraced.  So  that  the 
fallacy  for  a  while  has  it  all  its  own  way.  In  this 


140  SUMMER  REST. 

Sunday  question,  that  is  taught  as  a  duty  which  is 
not  a"  duty.  The  lesson  is  enforced  by  arguments 
that  are  fallacious,  but  they  are  accepted  by  the 
people  partly  through  an  inaptitude  for  thinking, 
and  partly  through  a  blind  confidence  in  their 
teachers,  who  are  supposed  to  think  for  them. 
These  arguments  are  defended  by  "proof-texts," 
the  majority  of  which  prove  nothing  to  the  pur 
pose,  have  indeed  no  connection,  or  but  an  inci 
dental  one,  with  the  matter  in  hand,  but  have 
verbal  resemblance  enough  to  a  proof  to  deceive 
the  unwary  or  the  inexpert.  A  jumble  of  Old  and 
New  Testament  is  served  out  from  pulpit  and  press 
as  Christianity.  But  while  this  medley  is  diffused 
throughout  our  religious  literature,  in  Sunday- 
school  book,  tract,  and  periodical,  no  fair  state 
ment  of  the  opposite  side  is  permitted  to  appear. 

I.  O  no,  no,  that  is  not  true.      You  overstate. 

If.    Crede  experto. 

I.  But  doubtless  your  expert-ing  was  with  a 
long,  belligerent,  metaphysical  paper,  too  unwieldy 
for  use,  whatever  its  doctrine  may  have  been. 

H.  Vastly  complimentary. 

I.  Just  you  write,  or  I  will  write,  a  short,  inci 
dental  article,  touching  the  question  lightly,  but 
not  uncertainly,  making  not  so  much  an  attack  as 
a  suggestion,  and  I  have  no  doubt  we  should  find 
ample  room  and  verge  enough. 

//.  Try  it  if  you  like. 

/.  I  will  try  it. 


A   COUNCIL  ABOUT  A    COUNCIL.       HI 

I  did  try  it,  sending  my  short  paper  to  various 
respectable  religious  newspapers.  Some  formally 
and  freezingly  replied,  and  some  said  by  their  si 
lence,  Better  stay  at  home.  They  thought  the 
tendency  of  the  paper  "would  be  to  unsettle  the 
minds  of  many  readers."  They  "  would  use  cheer 
fully  that  which  relates  to  the  importance  of  set 
ting  forth  our  belief  in  the  language  of  to-day,  but 
it  would  be  with  the  greatest  reluctance  we  could 
consent  to  publish  what  you  say  about  the  Sab 
bath."  They  did  not  "  believe  that  one  in  ten  of 
our  readers  would  agree  with  you,  and  its  publica 
tion  would  tend  strongly  to  the  secularization  of 
the  Sabbath."  They  could  not  publish  this  paper, 
but  would  be  glad  "  to  publish  an  article  from  you 
in  which  you  and  we  could  agree."  But  if  people 
agree,  what  is  the  need  of  saying  anything  ?  There 
is  no  use  in  going  further,  is  there  ?  I  asked. 

H.  Not  the  least  in  the  world.  You  would  be 
served  with  the  same  sauce  by  the  Monthlies  and 
the  Quarterlies  as  by  the  Weeklies.  Boston  Re 
view,  New  Englander,  and  the  majestic  Bibliotheca 
Sacra,  —  not  one  of  them  all  will  suffer  you  to  lay 
a  finger's  weight  on  the  Sabbath.  No  strange 
thing  has  happened  to  you.  It  is  a  matter  of 
course,  that  where  you  diverge  from  a  sect,  you 
must  go  on  your  own  account.  They  will  not 
lend  you  their  organs  to  refute  their  own  argu 
ments.  No  matter  how  well  you  can  prove  that 
you  have  the  Bible  on  your  side,  their  readers 


142  SUMMER  REST. 

shall  never  see  the  proof.  They  are  the  teachers 
of  the  people,  and  if  they  choose  to  teach  the  tra 
ditions  of  the  elders  instead  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ, 
they  will  not  help  you  to  publish  anything  im 
pugning  those  traditions.  You  will  be  shut  out 
from  their  columns,  and  you  cannot  possibly  get 
your  statements  before  the  mass  of  their  sub 
scribers. 

I.  Of  course  if  they  believe  it  is  error,  they  will 
not  turn  to  and  promulgate  it.  And  I  can  very 
clearly  see  that  there  is  danger  in  that  direction. 
To  strip  from  Sunday  its  false  sanctity  may  seem 
to  be  plundering  it  of  its  true.  That  is  to  be 
guarded  against. 

If.  But  not  by  letting  it  keep  its  borrowed  or 
stolen  feathers. 

I.  No.  And  it  seems  to  me  cowardly  and  un- 
philosophical,  and  not  at  all  in  the  true  spirit  of 
inquiry,  to  be  so  afraid  of  what  a  thing  may  lead 
to.  The  question  is,  not  what  a  truth  is  going  to 
do,  but  what  is  truth.  We  are  not  put  here  to 
keep  the  universe  in  motion,  but  to  find  out  what 
is  its  principle  of  motion,  and  to  put  ourselves  in 
harmony  with  that.  Besides,  truth  is  always  safe 
and  conservative ;  falsehood,  never.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  arriving  at  right  conclusions,  if  you 
are  always  to  be  hampered  by  the  clamor  of  some 
craft  that  is  in  danger.  It  is  absolutely  indispen 
sable  that  we  take  to  investigation  a  pure  heart, 
an  open  mind,  ready  to  receive  what  is,  without 


A    COUNCIL  ABOUT  A    COUNCIL.       143 

fear  or  favor,  or  respect  of  persons  or  prejudices 
or  interests. 

H.  But  many  minds  have  lost  this  receptive 
power.  They  have  become  callous.  No  argu 
ment  touches  them.  They  never  come  into  con 
tact  with  another  mind.  There  is  a  sort  of  mental 
paralysis. 

I.  It  is  very  sad. 

H.  It  is  the  saddest  of  all  mental  conditions  short 
of  insanity,  for  it  is  the  stoppage  of  growth.  It 
is  death  in  life.  It  is  the  old  fable  of  the  Medu 
sa's  head  come  true.  And  the  worst  of  it  is,  that 
the  persons  suffering  from  it  are  profoundly  un 
conscious  of  their  condition.  For  it  consists  with 
great  apparent  activity.  The  present  state  of 
the  Sunday  question  is  largely  due  to  this  want  of 
sensitiveness  to  the  truth,  yet  there  is  a  vigorous 
effort  now  making  to  diffuse  these  unscriptural  and 
untruthful  notions.  All  the  Presbyterian,  and  I 
believe  all  the  Baptist  ministers,  are  to  be  supplied 
with  a  copy  of  Gilfillan's  book  on  the  Sabbath.  It 
is  very  plausible,  and  its  arguments  will  be  received 
honestly  by  many  of  both  teachers  and  taught. 
People  have  been  so  educated  and  accustomed  to 
look  upon  the  Bible  as  one  dead  level  of  doctrine 
that  they  are  easily  led  blindfold  by  such  fellows  as 
this  Gilfillan. 

/.  Do  not  call  him  "fellows."  It  is  bad  enough 
to  be  a  man  without  being  men  in  general.  That 
is  spiteful,  is  it  not?  But  you  are  really  growing 


144  SUMMER  REST. 

quite  cross,  and  I  shall  have  to  "  fight  fire  with 
fire." 

//.  When  one  man  or  men  in  general  spice  a 
sufficient  quantity  of  pious  language  with  a  little 
holy  horror  of  the  impiety  of  their  opponents' 
teachings,  and  fortify  their  positions  with  a  dozen 
or  twenty  Old  Testament  texts  on  the  sanctifica- 
tion  of  the  Sabbath,  asserting  or  assuming  that 
those  texts  are  as  conclusive  for  the  first  day  of 
the  week  to  the  Americans  as  they  were  for  the 
seventh  to  the  Jews,  and  closing  up  the  argument 
with  a  twang  of  Q.  E.  D.,  the  state  of  Biblical 
knowledge  is  such  that  nineteen  out  of  twenty 
will  think  he  has  made  out  his  case. 

/.  Now  I  really  must  interfere.  I  do  not  so 
much  wonder  at  your  bitterness ;  for  to  have  one's 
articles  rejected  by  everybody  is  enough  to  pro 
voke  a  saint,  which  you  were  never  accused  of 
being.  But  it  is  sad  to  see  you  losing  not  only 
temper  and  manners,  but  logic.  What  a  contra 
diction  it  is  to  say  the  state  of  Biblical  knowledge 
is  so  low,  when,  only  a  little  while  ago,  you  arro 
gated  to  our  day  a  vast  superiority  in  Biblical 
knowledge  over  that  of  our  ancestors.  Or  do  you 
think  that  you  alone  are  versed  in  Biblical  knowl 
edge,  and  that  all  wisdom  will  die  with  you? 
Really,  you  talk  about  the  Sunday  question  as  if 
you  thought  so ! 

H.  You  have  a  lovely  way  of  charming  one 
unconsciously  out  of  ill-temper,  if  one  should  ever 


A    COUNCIL  ABOUT  A    COUNCIL.        145 

happen  to  be  in  it !  But  you  may  rest  assured  it 
is  quite  possible  for  Biblical  knowledge  to  be  much 
further  advanced  than  formerly,  and  yet  nineteen 
out  of  twenty  have  very  little  of  it.  I  fear  our 
congregations  generally  know  no  more  about  the 
Bible  than  did  the  congregations  of  fifty  or  a  hun 
dred  years  ago,  —  if  indeed  they  know  as  much. 
But  if  they  are  disposed  to  study  it,  they  can  learn 
a  great  deal  more  than  could  have  been  learned 
then. 

I.  I  tell  you  what  I  will  do.  Have  you  read 
this  book  of  Gilfillan's? 

H.  No  ;  nor  any  man  of  woman  born,  I  suspect. 
I  have  read  at  it  several  times. 

I.  You  have  it? 

H.  In  some  boundless  contiguity  or  other.  I 
carted  it  round  several  days  last  winter  in  town. 

I.  Say  you  took  it  with  you.  That  would  be 
much  more  civil.  Don't  you  think  I  might  write 
out  a  sort  of  exposition  of  the  true  state  of  the  case, 
reviewing  this  book,  perhaps,  but  at  any  rate  show 
ing  the  true  character  of  the  Sunday ;  and  then  if 
the  periodicals  will  have  none  of  it,  we  can  set  up 
a  printing-press  for  ourselves,  as  Horace  Walpole 
did,  on  Strawberry  Hill.  You  hunt  up  the  book. 

H.  Very  well,  if  you  like.  It  will  be  of  ser 
vice  to  yourself,  and  do  nobody  any  harm,  though 
I  question  whether  it  does  much  good. 

/.  O,  things  in  general  do  not  do  much  good, 
but  you  have  to  do  them  just  the  same. 


146  SUMMER  REST. 

So  it  came  to  pass  in  process  of  time  that  I 
presented  myself  with  a  formidable  roll  of  man 
uscript.  Halicarnassus  made  woful  eyes  at  it,  but 
there  was  no  escape.  "  If  it  is  inevitable,"  he 
pleaded,  however,  "  let  us  take  advantage  of  all 
possible  mitigating  circumstances.  Get  your  work, 
and  we  will  go  down  in  the  orchard  and  have  it 
out  there." 

I.  You  already  enjoy  to  the  full  the  advantage 
designated  by  the  Abbot  Trublet  a  hundred  years 
ago,  namely,  that  "it  is  advantage  to  every  partic 
ular  person  not  to  have  too  much  sense." 

It  was  a  little  sharp  I  admit,  but  Halicarnassus 
is  very  apt  to  suggest  to  me  to  take  my  work, 
and  we  will  do  thus  and  so ;  but  I  do  not  wish 
to  take  my  work  and  be  read  or  talked  to.  Work 
means  sewing,  and  sewing  spoils  everything.  It 
is  a  bad  habit,  hard  to  form  and  hard  to  break. 
It  is  demoralizing  ;  never  to  be  resorted  to  ex 
cept  as  a  relief  or  a  necessity,  or,  like  involuntary 
servitude,  as  a  punishment  for  crime.  There  are 
states  of  mind  for  which  sewing  is  soothing.  It 
attracts  just  enough  of  your  attention  and  vitality 
to  draw  off  the  surplus  electricity  and  give  you  a 
chance  to  come  down  from  your  excitement,  get 
wholesomely  tired  and  able  to  sleep.  Also  when 
it  is  a  question  between  rags  and  sewing,  I  sup 
pose  one  should  choose  the  sewing.  But  for  per 
sons  who  are  not  obliged  to  sew,  to  spend  day  after 
day  in  pulling  a  string  through  a  piece  of  cloth 


A    COUNCIL  ABOUT  A    COUNCIL.        147 

seems  a  lamentable  waste  of  time.  And  lament 
able  too  is  it  that  this  busy  idleness  should  be 
lauded  as  a  virtue.  In  a  world  where  there  is  so 
much  real  work  to  be  done,  necessary  work, 
eternal  work,  all  who  can  free  themselves  from 
the  petty  necessities  ought  to  do  so  both  for  the 
sake  of  the  world's  work  and  the  world's  poor. 
There  are  always  people  enough  glad  to  do  all  the 
sewing  we  can  give  them,  to  whom  the  money 
which  it  brings  means  common  comfort,  perhaps 
sustenance,  perhaps  a  sense  of  self-respect  and 
self-help.  I  fear  a  great  deal  of  what  we  call 
industry  is  unnecessary  narrowing  to  small  issues. 
A  soul's  life  is  pricked  out  with  the  point  of  a  nee 
dle,  when  it  ought  instead  to  be  always  ripening 
by  and  for  the  great  busy-ness  of  eternity :  and  all 
the  while  it  is  doing  this  it  flatters  itself  that  it  is 
doing  duty  and  being  exemplary. 

No,  if  sewing  must  be  done,  let  us  go  into  our 
chambers  and  shut  the  doors,  and  forbid  all  pro 
fane  approach,  and  forget  that  there  is  a  great,  glo 
rious  world  outside,  and  sew  as  long  as  we  can 
keep  our  temper,  but  let  us  not  sully  the  splendor 
of  summer  afternoons  with  needle  and  thread. 

This  is  a  doctrine  that  will  suit  men,  whatever 
women  think  about  it !  I  know  one  man  who  likes 
it,  at  least  to  the  degree  that  he  is  firmly  con 
vinced  it  conduces  more  to  his  happiness  to  have 
one  enjoy  life  according  to  one's  tastes,  than  to 
work  and  lose  one's  temper.  If  a  man  has  no  but- 


148  SUMMER   REST. 

ton  on  his  wristband,  he  can  do  without  it ;  if  the 
coffee  is  bad,  he  can  drink  water,  and  be  just  as 
well  off  in  half  an  hour.  There  is  talk  sometimes 
of  health  and  spirits  depending  on  wholesome  food; 
but  why  is  it  not  just  as  disastrous  for  me  to  de 
stroy  my  health  and  temper  in  cooking  you  good 
food  as  it  is  for  you  to  impair  yours  by  eating 
bad  ?  For  you  know  I  could  not  endure  existence 
over  a  cooking-stove ;  and  life  would  be  no  boon  to 
you  without  me,  would  it,  Halicarnassus  ?  He  is 
whittling  a  whistle  out  of  a  willow  twig,  and  does 
not  seem  to  hear  me.  A  little  louder,  "  Would  it, 
Halicarnassus?"  "Eh?  no.  O,  no!"  But  he  need 
not  have  hallooed  his  sentiment  as  if  he  had  been 
driving  oxen.  As  I  was  saying,  slight  annoy 
ances  may  be  put  aside,  but  an  unhappy  face  is  an 
ever-present  sorrow.  Work  that  one  does  against 
one's  nature  will  be  fiercely  avenged.  Tastes,  — 
what  were  they  given  us  for  but  enjoyment  and 
guidance  ?  The  thing  which  one  likes  to  do,  that 
is  the  thing  which  one  can  do  best,  and  wliich  he 
will  do  the  most  good  in  doing.  The  existence  of 
the  liking  is  the  sign  of  the  power.  There  is  no 
calling  in  life,  be  it  embraced  with  ever  so  much 
delight,  that  will  preclude  the  necessity  of  atten 
tion  and  care  and  sacrifice  ;  but  when  these  come 
in  the  natural  way,  the  natural  attendants  of  hearty 
work,  they  nerve  and  strengthen.  How  unwise  to 
engage,  from  some  mistaken  notion  of  duty,  or 
simply  because  everybody  else  does,  in  an  uncon- 


A    COUNCIL  ABOUT  A    COUNCIL.        149 

genial  calling,  where  the  friction  tends  to  weary 
not  only,  but  to  baffle  and  dispirit.  Why  make 
life  harder  than  it  need  be,  or  was  meant  to  be  ? 
I  hate  that  religion  or  that  philosophy  which  pre 
tends  to  look  complacently  upon  troubles  as  if 
they  were  something  to  be  quietly  borne  and  not 
stoutly  resisted.  These  light  afflictions  are  but 
for  a  moment,  said  Paul ;  but  he  climbed  out  of  a 
window  and  dropped  down  in  a  basket  to  escape 
them,  and  not  till  he  had  made  every  effort  to 
put  them  aside  did  he  stand  up  and  endure  them. 
Then  it  was  manliness.  To  have  done  it  earlier 
would  have  been  weakness.  It  is  trouble,  it  is 
discomfort,  it  is  unhappiness,  that  brings  in  sin  and 
crime.  It  is  never  so  easy  to  be  good  as  when 
you  are  happy.  It  is  never  so  easy  to  be  cross  as 
when  you  are  crossed.  The  good  God  has  pro 
vided,  in  the  nature  of  things,  all  the  trial  which 
the  human  constitution  needs.  Men  may  strenu 
ously  endeavor  to  make  every  pathway  as  smooth 
as  possible,  without  fearing  that  the  soul  will  be 
come  a  Sybarite.  All  trouble  that  is  wantonly  or 
carelessly  or  needlessly  made  for  us  by  friend  or  foe 
is  an  injury.  The  heart  can  stand  wear  and  tear 
only  within  certain  limits.  Beyond  those  there  is 
harm  of  some  kind  to  temper,  health,  or  spirits, 
and  no  amount  of  Christian  resignation  can  prevent 
it ;  for  the  Christianity  that  is  necessary  to  bring 
resignation  might  have  been  used  aggressively 
against  some  wrong.  When  the  cupidity  or  neg- 


150  SUMMER  REST. 

ligence  of  a  railroad  company  costs  a  limb,  you 
may  be  resigned  to  the  will  of  God,  but  you  can 
never  be  sound  again  ;  and  a  lost  happiness,  a  lost 
hopefulness,  a  lost  mirthful  ness,  is  as  fatal  to  char 
acter  and  to  the  best  life  as  a  bodily  disaster. 

"It  seems  to  me,"  says  Halicarnassus,  dubiously, 
"  that  there  is  another  side  which  you  —  " 

I.  If  there  is,  let  it  alone.  One  side  is  enough 
at  a  time.  Now  read  the  Essay. 

H.  An'  't  please  your  Majesty,  is  it  a  review  of 
Gilfillan? 

I.  Well,  yes,  of  Gilfillan  and  matters  in  general. 
That  is,  Gilfillan  serves  as  a  pretext  for  the  whole 
thing,  though  I  can't  say  it  has  much  to  do  with 
him. 

H.  The  saints  defend  us  !  (turning  over  the 
manuscript.)  It  has  much  to  do  with  something. 
Thirty  pages,  and  foolscap  ! 

I.  Not  a  line  too  much. 

(There  is  this  to  be  said  in  defence  of  my  friend, 
that  in  his  first  estate  he  does  not  take  kindly  to 
these  matters.  But  I  am  fond  of  theology,  and  he 
is  fond  of  me,  so  it  happens  that,  from  whatever 
quarter  we  set  sail,  we  generally  find  ourselves 
bearing  down  upon  theology,  —  though  the  big 
ship  often  flies  signals  of  distress,  of  which  the 
little  pilot-boat  takes  no  heed.) 

J.  But  I  can  tell  you,  that  after  I  had  looked 
through  the  book,  I  was  wellnigh  discouraged  — 

H.  Discouraged  to  the  tune  of  thirty  pages  of 
foolscap ! 


A    COUNCIL  ABOUT  A    COUNCIL.       151 

I.  To  find  that  so  many  people  had  written  on 
tliis  subject.  I  supposed  the  error  was  simply  be 
cause  attention  had  never  been  called  to  the  truth. 
On  the  contrary,  the  truth  has  been  held  up  for 
centuries,  and  here  we  are  groping  in  error  still. 
What  good  can  one  little  squeak  do,  when  the 
thunders  have  been  rolling  for  hundreds  of  years, 
and  rolling  in  vain  ? 

H.  Heaven  defend  our  ears  from  thunder,  if 
this  is  what  you  call  a  squeak ! 

I.  Shall  I  tell  you  what  it  was  that  put  heart 
into  me  again  ? 

H.  I  am  powerless  in  your  hands. 

I.  You  know  how  the  earthworms  make  each 
his  little  hole  in  the  soil,  and  pile  each  his  little 
pile  of  pulverized  earth.  And  you  know  it  is  said 
these  earthworms  mellow  the  soil,  and  so  fit  it  for 
cultivation.  And  I  thought,  that  is  the  way  with 
us  all.  We  are  earthworms,  mellowing  the  hard 
pan  of  prejudice,  that  the  truth  may  presently 
spring  up  and  be  fruitful.  One  earthworm  can 
not  do  much,  but  he  can  at  least  mellow  his  little 
sphere. 

H.  Make  his  little  pile,  commercially  speaking. 

I.  And  by  and  by  we,  or  our  successors,  who 
have  been  delving  so  long,  shall  look  up  and  find 
the  whole  earth  softened,  and  the  truth  all  green 
and  vigorous  everywhere. 

We  had  now  reached  the  orchard,  and  having 
disposed  ourselves  suitably,  Halicarnassus  attacked 


152  SUMMER  REST. 

the  manuscript,  though  not  without  casting  grudg 
ing  eyes  at  me,  who  divided  the  shining  hours  be 
tween  watching  an  ant-hill  and  reading  for  the 
seventeenth  time  the  charming  chatter  of  "  Little 
Prudy." 

Here  is  the  paper,  to  be  read  or  skipped  as  one 
chooses ;  but  I  hope  you  will  read  it,  for  it  is  ex 
cellent,  —  though  I  say  it  who  should  not.  Excel 
lent  of  course  I  mean  for  substance  of  doctrine, 
and  otherwise  as  good  as  I  could  make  it. 


GILFILLAN'S   SABBATH* 


:ROM  the  time  of  their  deliverance  out 
of  Egypt  to  their  captivity  in  Babylon, 
the  Jews  were  continually  lapsing  into 
idolatry  ;  and  from  the  time  of  St.  Paul 
to  the  present,  the  Christian  world  seems  ever 
tending  to  lapse  into  Judaism.  It  is  apparently  a 
most  difficult  task  to  believe  that  the  Messiah  has 
come,  or  that,  having  come,  he  has  introduced  any 
change  in  our  economy. 

The  book  whose  title  we  have  placed  at  the 
head  of  this  paper  has  been  widely  distributed  by 
a  special  effort  of  the  "  New  York  Sabbath  Com 
mittee."  A  copy  is  furnished  gratuitously  to 
every  pastor  connected  with  the  General  Assem 
bly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  with  the  Bap 
tist  and  Orthodox  churches.  We  have  taken 
the  trouble  to  examine  the  volume  carefully,  in 

*  The  Sabbath  viewed  in  the  Light  of  Reason,  Revelation, 
and  History,  with  Sketches  of  its  Literature.  By  the  Rev. 
JAMES  GILFILLAN,  Stirling,  Scotland.  Published  by  the  Amer 
ican  Tract  Society,  150  Nassau  Street,  New  York,  and  the  New 
York  Subbath  Committee,  5  Bible  House,  Astor  Place. 
7* 


154  SUMMER   REST. 

order  to  ascertain  what  it  is  that  merits  so  exten 
sive  and  important  a  circulation.  We  find  a  trea 
tise  whose  aim  is  to  put  the  world  back  exactly 
where  it  was  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  :  to  take 
us  from  under  the  law  of  Christ  and  put  us  under 
the  law  of  Moses.  In  execution,  it  is  prolix  to 
weariness,  singularly  devoid  of  sprightliness,  grace, 
and  vigor  of  style  and  originality  of  treatment ; 
rambling  and  rhetorical  where  it  should  be  concise 
and  logical,  involved  in  its  argument,  often  obscure 
and  always  dull.  On  the  other  hand,  it  bears 
marks  of  unwearied  industry.  It  has  gathered 
from  all  quarters  facts,  doctrines,  and  opinions 
bearing  on  its  theme,  whether  they  are  friendly 
or  hostile  to  its  own  theory.  It  is  —  we  can 
not  say  animated,  so  lively  a  term  being  quite 
inadmissible,  but  it  is  evidently  actuated  by  an 
honest  desire  to  do  God  service.  It  seems  to 
be  conscientious,  and  means  to  be  fair.  Happily 
for  the  author's  self-complacency,  he  is  endowed 
with  an  inability  to  see  the  bearings  of  things, 
and  plods  along  with  equal  serenity,  whether  the 
argument  makes  for  or  against  him.  He  utters 
great  truths  which  are  fatal  to  his  theory,  in 
the  innocent  belief  that  they  confirm  it.  He 
is  not  especially  bitter,  seldom  attributing  to  his 
opponents  anything  worse  than  a  blindness  born 
of  prejudice,  or  describing  their  hypothesis  in  any 
harsher  terms  than  "  an  expedient  foolish  as  well 
as  allied  to  the  irreverent  and  profane."  From 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  155 

a  candor   and   consideration   so  unwonted,   what 
may  we  not  expect? 

The  intellectual  calibre  of  the  man  may  perhaps 
be  best  learned  from  the  statement,  that  he  calls 
the  interpretation  which  makes  the  six  days  of 
creation  denote  periods  of  long  duration,  "  in  re 
ality  a  libel  on  the  simplest  and  most  perfect  style 
of  historical  writing,"  and  finds  an  "  unanswerable 
objection  "  to  the  "  dogma  which  would  convert 
the  days  of  creation  into  millenary  cycles,  and 
confound,  to  borrow  an  expression  from  Bishop 
Horslev,  '  the  writing  of  a  history  with  the  compo 
sition  of  riddles.' ' 

We  do  not  design  formally  to  review  the  book ; 
to  follow  the  tortuous  paths  of  its  logic,  its  rhet 
oric,  and  its  history.  For  such  an  enterprise  we 
should  need  to  borrow  the  pages  of  an  encyclo 
paedia.  But  believing  truth  to  be  the  best  refuta 
tion  of  error,  we  shall  present,  as  concisely  as 
possible,  what  we  consider  to  be  the  nature  and 
purpose  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath  and  the  Christian 
Sunday,  referring  to  the  views  of  Mr.  Gilfillan 
only  where  they  obviously  impinge  upon  our  own. 

We  premise  first,  that  we  shall  found  our  argu 
ment  on  the  Bible.  From  the  opinions  of  wise 
men,  both  in  the  earlier  and  later  ages,  from  the 
hints  of  nature,  and  from  our  own  preconceived 
notions  of  what  ought  to  be,  we  may  get  what 
help  we  can,  but  the  court  of  last  resort  is  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament.  If  the 


156  SUMMER  REST. 

Sabbatli  is  enjoined  upon  us  in  the  Bible,  we  ac 
cept  it ;  if  it  is  not,  we  shall  use  our  own  judgment 
in  accepting  or  rejecting  it. 

In  order  to  arrive  at  a  right  understanding  and 
a  full  comprehension  of  the  Bible,  we  need  to 
know  and  always  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  Bible 
has  a  body  and  a  spirit,  and  that  the  body  is  like 
our  own,  of  the  earth  earthy,  and  limited  by  time 
and  space,  while  its  Spirit  is  Divine  and  illimit 
able.  In  spirit,  it  is  the  will  of  God  revealed  to 
man.  In  body,  it  is  history,  poetry,  prophecy, 
narrative,  epistles,  chiefly  relating  and  addressed 
to  a  single  nation.  To  this  nation  it  was  a  direct 
revelation.  To  us  it  is  an  oblique  revelation.  To 
both  all-sufficient  for  the  life  that  now  is  and  for 
that  which  is  to  come,  —  if  we  use  it  and  do  not 
simply  abuse  it. 

For  example :  when  God  said  to  Abram,  "  Get 
thee  out  of  thy  country,  and  from  thy  kindred, 
and  from  thy  father's  house,  unto  a  land  that  I 
will  show  thee  ;  and  I  will  make  of  thee  a  great 
nation,  and  I  will  bless  thee,"  he  spoke  to  Abram 
alone,  and  not  to  us  Americans  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  When  Christ  said  to  the  eleven  Apos 
tles,  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the 
Gospel  to  every  creature,"  he  spoke  to  the  eleven 
Apostles  and  not  to  us.  But  believing  with  the 
Apostle  Paul,  on  his  authority  combined  with  that 
of  our  own  reason,  that  all  these  things  are  writ 
ten  for  our  admonition  upon  whom  the  ends  of  the 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  157 

world  are  come,  we  think  it  our  part  to  ascertain 
what  it  is  that  God  means  to  teach  us  by  what 
he  did  and  said  to  the  Jews.  While  we  judge, 
therefore,  that  he  did  not  enjoin  upon  every  man 
to  leave  his  country  and  his  kindred  and  go  to 
a  foreign  land,  since  that  would  be  manifestly 
useless,  impossible,  and  absurd,  we  do  infer  that 
he  requires  every  man  to  separate  himself  from  all 
wickedness,  and  to  constitute  himself  and  his  fam 
ily  a  church  of  God.  While  we  do  not  believe  it 
is  every  man's  duty  to  go  to  China  or  Turkey  or 
Persia  as  a  missionary,  we  do  believe,  from  Christ's 
command,  that  it  is  his  duty  to  spread  the  good 
tidings  wherever  and  whenever  he  can  find  oppor 
tunity.  God  founded  the  Jewish  nation  that  he 
might  commit  to  them  his  oracles.  Until  Christ 
came,  that  revelation  was  sufficient  for  salvation. 
Christ  established  a  new  covenant,  inaugurated  a 
new  era.  Narrowness,  separation,  was  the  essence 
of  Judaism.  Universality,  permeation,  is  the  es 
sence  of  Christianity.  The  force  of  Judaism  was 
centripetal ;  that  of  Christianity  is  centrifugal. 
"  Get  thee  out  of  thy  country,  and  I  will  make  of 
thee  a  great  nation,"  was  the  key-note  of  the  old 
Dispensation.  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and 
preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature  "  was  the 
key-note  of  the  new.  Yet  Judaism  was  as  essen 
tial  as  Christianity,  was  essential  indeed  to  Chris 
tianity,  was  Christianity.  Judaism  was  the  seed 
of  which  Christianity  was  the  flower.  Judaism 


158  SUMMER  REST. 

was  intensely  local  that  Christianity  might  by  and 
by  be  world-wide.  Judaism  went  first  through 
the  deserts  of  the  world  preparing  the  way  for 
Christianity ;  and  if  at  this  day  we  are  not  subject 
to  the  same  discipline,  and  amenable  to  the  same 
laws  as  the  Jews  were,  it  is  only  because  we  have 
so  profited  by  their  lessons  as  to  be  prepared  to 
enter  an  advanced  class.  Thus  we  hold  the 
Old  and  the  New  Testament  in  equal  reverence. 
Each  is  a  revelation  from  God.  But  only  the 
latter  is  binding  on  us,  —  and  that  only  in  such 
parts  as  concern  us,  —  because  only  the  latter 
was  addressed  to  us.  Neither  the  Old  Testament 
nor  the  New  is  binding  on  us  in  those  precepts 
which  concern  only  the  society  to  which  they 
were  addressed.  Many  things  it  is  our  duty  to 
do  which  were  enjoined  upon  the  Jews ;  as,  for 
instance,  to  befriend  the  orphan  and  the  widow  ; 
but  this  is  not  our  duty  because  the  Jews  were 
exhorted  to  justice  and  benevolence,  but  because 
the  obligation  is  written  on  our  hearts  and  con 
firmed  by  the  teachings  of  Christ.  We  have  no 
need  to  resort  to  the  Old  Testament  to  learn  our 
duty.  It  is  far  more  clearly  revealed  in  the  New. 
The  Old  Testament  is  a  sacred  book,  but  it  is  not 
ours.  It  is  a  Divine  revelation,  but  not  to  us. 
Moses  belonged  to  the  Jews,  but  we  have  Christ. 
Moses  earnestly  besought  God  to  show  him  His 
glory,  and  received  for  answer,  "  Thou  shalt  see  my 
back  parts,  but  my  face  shall  not  be  seen."  Jesus 


GILFILLAWS  SABBATH.  159 

Christ,  the  brightness  of  God's  glory,  and  the  ex 
press  image  of  His  person,  we  have  heard,  we 
have  seen  with  our  eyes,  we  have  looked  upon, 
and  our  hands  have  handled.  Shall  we  go  back 
from  the  sunshine  into  the  twilight?  Shall  we 
resort  to  the  precepts  and  laws  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  framed  for  a  people  hardly  snatched  from 
idolatry,  a  people  gross,  sensual,  ignorant,  and 
stiff-necked,  a  people  who  had  scarcely  any  spir 
itual  sense,  or  any  idea  of  future  existence,  or  of 
inherent  right  and  wrong,  —  we  who  live  upon  an 
earth  warmed,  softened,  and  spiritualized  by  eigh 
teen  centuries  of  Christian  sunshine  ? 

Yet  just  here  rages  the  controversy  regarding 
the  Sabbath.  Christians  have  universally  relin 
quished  Judaism  to  the  extent  of  giving  up  cir 
cumcision,  sacrifice,  priesthood,  and  sanctuary, 
but  there  are  many  who  retain  the  Sabbath  on 
the  ground  that  it  is  enjoined  in  the  Fourth  Com 
mandment,  and  therefore  of  more  force  than  the 
law  to  wear  girdles  of  fine-twined  linen.  Thou 
sands  of  injunctions  concerning  work  and  worship 
are  labelled  "  ceremonial  law,"  and  very  uncere 
moniously  hustled  aside,  while  the  "  ten  command 
ments  "  are  named  "  moral  law,"  and  reckoned 
still  binding.  But  who  made  this  distinction  ? 
Where  in  the  Bible  do  we  find  the  Mosaic  laws 
thus  classified  and  disposed  of?  We  affirm  that 
it  is  done  solely  on  human  authority  ;  that  the 
Bible  countenances  no  such  arrangement ;  that, 


160  SUMMER   REST. 

on  the  contrary,  the  whole  Mosaic  law,  decalogue 
and  all,  was,  by  the  coming  of  Christ,  disannulled. 
We  are  no  more  under  the  law  of  the  ten  com 
mandments  than  we  are  under  the  law  of  ablu 
tions  and  fringes.  Christ  and  his  Apostles  taught 
as  clearly  as  it  is  possible  to  teach  that  the  Mosaic 
law  was  superseded.  They  drew  no  dividing  line 
between  moral  and  ceremonial  law,  but  dismissed 
the  whole  law  as  a  thing  of  the  past. 

What  then  !  are  we  at  liberty  to  commit  mur 
der  and  adultery,  to  steal  and  covet  and  worship 
false  gods?  Yes,  if  these  things  are  the  law 
written  on  our  hearts,  if  these  things  are  enjoined 
in  the  Gospel,  —  if  these  things  are  the  fulfilling 
of  tfre  law.  For,  let  it  be  remembered,  the  old 
law  was  superseded,  not  by  a  worse,  but  by  a  bet 
ter  hope  ;  not  because  it  was  too  strenuous,  but 
because  it  was  not  strenuous  enough  ;  not  in  that 
it  was  to  be  violated,  but  in  that  it  had  been  ful 
filled.  One  people  among  the  peoples  had  been 
turned  from  the  worship  of  false  gods.  Into  their 
hard  hearts  had  been  drilled  a  belief  in  the  ex 
istence  of  one  God,  his  concern  in  the  affairs  of 
men,  his  sovereignty,  his  justice,  his  mercy,  his 
righteousness.  They  were  taught  that  oppression 
and  unchastity  and  idolatry  were  sins  and  crimes. 
The  Mosaic  law  drew  for  the  world  the  outline 
of  a  holy  life.  Then  the  world  was  ripe  for 
further  knowledge.  Christ  took  the  fair  sketch 

o 

and   filled  it  in   with    tints   of   heavenly  beauty. 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  161 

The  words  of  the  law  passed  away,  that  the  spirit 
of  the  law  might  have  free  course.  u  Thou  shalt 
not  kill,"  said  the  law.  "  Whosoever  is  angry 
with  his  brother,  without  a  cause,  shall  be  in 
danger  of  the  same  judgment,"  said  the  spirit. 
u  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery,"  said  the  law. 
"  Whosoever  looketh  on  a  woman  to  lust  after 
her  hath  committed  adultery  with  her  already 
in  his  heart,"  said  the  spirit  of  the  law.  The 
people  were  astonished  to  hear  such  words,  and 
for  these  eighteen  hundred  years  they  have  not 
sufficiently  recovered  from  their  astonishment  to 
believe  them.  To  this  day,  Christian  men  have 
the  veil  upon  their  hearts,  and  the  Ten  Com 
mandments  read  in  the  churches  every  Sabbath 
day. 

It  is  difficult  and  it  is  humiliating  to  cite  proofs 
of  these  statements.  It  is  humiliating,  that,  with 
the  face  of  Christ  shining  upon  us  now  these 
eighteen  centuries,  we  should  still  be  fumbling 
over  the  decalogue.  It  is  humiliating,  that  per 
sons  living  in  this  latest  age  of  the  Christian  era 
should  need  just  as  strong  argument,  and  just  as 
earnest  remonstrance,  to  keep  them  from  turning 
again  to  the  weak  and  beggarly  elements,  where- 
unto  they  desire  again  to  be  in  bondage,  as  did 
persons  of  the  first  age.  It  is  difficult  to  cite 
proof,  for  the  whole  New  Testament  is  proof. 
The  going  out  of  the  law  of  Moses,  and  the 
coming  in  of  the  law  of  Christ,  is  the  burden  of 

K 


162  SUMMER  REST. 

the  Gospel.  Christ  announced  it  and  his  Apostles 
reiterated  it.  Again  and  again,  with  impassioned 
earnestness,  with  vehement  logic,  with  figure  and 
illustration,  hy  precept  and  example,  they  labored 
to  impress  this  truth  upon  their  time,  for  all  times. 
With  steadfast  hands,  they  tore  away  the  scaffold 
ing  of  the  law,  and  displayed  to  mankind  the 
beautiful  edifice,  which  all  the  while  had  been 
slowly  rising  behind  the  once  necessary  and  sym 
metrical,  but  now  unnecessary,  and  therefore  cum 
brous  and  disfiguring  framework.  Law  was  to 
give  place  to  love. 

At  the  outset  of  his  ministry  Christ,  knowing 
what  he  was  to  do,  forestalled  the  objections  which 
would  be  brought  against  him,  and  declared  that  he 
was  not  come  to  destroy  the  law  or  the  prophets, 
but  to  fulfil.  "  One  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise 
pass  from  the  law  till  all  be  fulfilled."  "The  law 
and  the  prophets,"  he  said  to  the  Pharisees,  "were 
until  John  :  since  that  time  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  preached."  Yet,  to  guard  against  misapprehen 
sion,  he  affirmed  the  next  moment  that  it  is  easier 
for  heaven  and  earth  to  pass  than  one  tittle  of  the 
law  to  fail.  How  the  law  was  to  be  fulfilled  he 
explicitly  told.  When  the  lawyer  asked  him  which 
was  the  great  commandment,  he  replied,  "  Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart, 
and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind.  This 
is  the  first  and  great  commandment.  And  the 
second  is  like  unto  it.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  163 

bor  as  thyself.  On  these  two  commandments  hang 
all  the  law  and  the  prophets."  Paul  says  that 
"Christ  is  the  end  of  the  law  for  righteousness 
to  every  one  that  believeth."  "He  that  loveth 
another  hath  fulfilled  the  law.  For  this,  Thou 
shalt  not  kill,  Thou  shalt  not  steal,  Thou  shalt  not 
bear  false  witness,  Thou  shalt  not  covet,  and  if 
there  be  any  other  commandment  it  is  briefly  com 
prehended  in  this  saying,  namely,  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  Love  worketh  no  ill  to 
his  neighbor :  therefore  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the 
law."  Is  it  the  "  ceremonial  law  "  of  which  Paul 
speaks?  Again  he  says,  illustrating  his  position 
from  the  case  of  a  woman  freed  from  her  husband 
by  his  death,  "  Now  we  are  delivered  from  the 
law,  that  being  dead  wherein  we  were  held;  that 
we  should  serve  in  newness  of  spirit,  and  not  in 
the  oldness  of  the  letter.  What  shall  we  say 
then  ?  Is  the  law  sin  ?  "  That  is,  is  it  sinful  ? 
Is  it  a  bad  law  which  must  be  broken  ?  "  God 
forbid.  Nay,  I  had  not  known  sin  but  by  the 
law ;  for  I  had  not  known  lust  except  the  law 
had  said,  Thou  shalt  not  covet."  (Is  it  "  the 
ceremonial "  or  the  "  moral "  law  that  says  Thou 
shalt  not  covet  ?)  No,  declares  Paul,  the  law  is 
not  sinful,  "  the  law  is  holy  "  as  far  as  it  goes,  but 
there  are  certain  things  which  "  the  law  could  not 

O 

do,  in  that  it  was  weak  through  the  flesh,"  where 
fore  God  sent  his  own  Son,  and  the  law  of  the 
spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  hath  made  us  forever 


164  SUMMER  REST. 

free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death.  "  There  is 
verily  a  disannulling  of  the  commandment  going 
before,  for  the  weakness  and  unprofitableness 
thereof.  For  the  law  made  nothing  perfect,  but 
the  bringing  in  of  a  better  hope  did."  "  For  the 
priesthood  being  changed,  there  is  made  of  neces 
sity  a  change  also  of  the  law."  "  If  ye  be  led  by 
the  Spirit,  ye  are  not  under  the  law."  "The 
fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace,  long-suifer- 
ing,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meekness,  tem 
perance :  against  such  there  is  no  law."  "For 
I,  through  the  law,  am  dead  to  the  law,  that  I 
might"  —  not  live  in  sin  to  my  heart's  content, 
but  —  "that  I  might  live  unto  God."  "Tell 
me,"  he  cries  to  the  stiff-necked  Galatian  Jews 
who  found  it  so  hard  to  give  up  their  traditions 
and  their  pride  of  Abraham,  —  "  tell  me,  ye  that 
desire  to  be  under  the  law,  do  ye  not  hear  the 
law  ?  For  it  is  written,  that  Abraham  had  two 
sons ;  the  one  by  a  bond-maid,  the  other  by  a  free 

woman Which  things  are  an  allegory :  for 

these  are  the  two  covenants;  the  one  from  the 
Mount  Sinai,  which  gendereth  to  bondage,  which 
is  Agar,  ....  and  answereth  to  Jerusalem  which 
now  is,  and  is  in  bondage  with  her  children.  But 
Jerusalem  which  is  above  is  free,  which  .  is  the 

mother  of  us  all So  then,  brethren,  we  are 

not  children  of  the  bond-woman,  but  of  the  free. 
Stand  fast,  therefore,  in  the  liberty  wherewith 
Christ  has  made  us  free,  and  be  not  entangled 


GILFILLAWS  SABBATH.  165 

again  with  the  yoke  of  bondage For,  breth 
ren,  ye  have  been  called  unto  liberty;  only  use 
not  liberty  for  an  occasion  to  the  flesh,  but  by 
love  serve  one  another.  For  all  the  law  is  ful 
filled  in  one  word,  even  in  this,  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  ....  Bear  ye  one  an 
other's  burdens,  and  so  fulfil  the  law  of  Christ." 
"  If  the  first  covenant  had  been  faultless,  then 
should  no  place  have  been  sought  for  the  sec 
ond.  For,  finding  fault  with  them,  he  saith, 
Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the  Lord,  when  I 
will  make  a  new  covenant  with  the  house  of  Is 
rael For  this  is  the  covenant  that  I  will 

make I  will  put  my  laws  into  their  mind, 

and  write  them  [not  on  tables  of  stone,  but]  in 
their  hearts In  that  he  saith,  A  new  cov 
enant,  he  hath  made  the  first  old.  Now  that 
which  decayeth  and  waxeth  old  is  ready  to  vanish 
away." 

Can  language  be  more  perspicuous  ? 

But  it  was  exceedingly  difficult  to  convince  the 
Jews  that  Christ  really  had  broken  down  the  mid 
dle  wall  of  partition  between  Jew  and  Gentile,  and 
abolished  even  the  law  of  commandments.  Nor 
need  we  be  surprised  that  they  should  look  with 
the  utmost  reluctance  upon  the  abolition  of  their 
law,  and  with  the  utmost  disfavor  upon  any  which 
should  be  brought  forward.  The  law  was  to  the 

O 

Jews  their  badge  of  honor,  the  token  of  their  place 
in  the  vanguard  of  the  world.  They  charged  Ste- 


166  SUMMER   REST. 

plien  with  designing  to  change  the  customs  which 
Moses  delivered  them.  They  accused  Paul  of 
teaching  the  Jews  to  forsake  Moses,  and  not  to 
walk  after  the  customs.  But  while  Paul  was  care 
ful  to  walk  orderly  and  keep  the  law,  not  objecting 
even  to  vows  and  purifications,  he  and  the  other 
apostles  steadfastly  maintained  that  the  Gentiles 
should  be  required  to  observe  no  such  thing. 
When  Peter  separated  himself  from  the  Gentiles, 
through  fear  of  the  Jews,  Paul  withstood  him  to 
the  face  because  he  was  to  be  blamed.  "Why 
compellest  thou  the  Gentiles  to  live  as  do  the 
Jews  ?  .  .  .  .  Knowing  that  a  man  is  not  justi 
fied  by  the  works  of  the  law,  but  by  the  faith  of 

Jesus  Christ Wherefore,  then,  serveth  the 

law  ?  [Of  what  use  is  the  law  ?]  It  was  added 
because  of  transgressions,  till  the  end  should  come 

to  whom  the  promise  was  made Wherefore 

the  law  was  our  schoolmaster  to  bring  us  unto 
Christ,  that  we  might  be  justified  by  faith.  But 
after  that  faith  is  come,  we  are  no  longer  under  a 
schoolmaster."  When  Paul  and  Barnabas  were 
teaching  in  Antioch,  certain  men  came  down  from 
Juda3a  and  preached  to  the  new  converts,  '  Except 
ye  be  circumcised  after  the  manner  of  Moses,  ye 
cannot  be  saved.'  After  much  dissension  and  dis 
putation,  a  delegation  was  sent  to  Jerusalem  where 
also  certain  partially  converted  Pharisees  main 
tained  that  it  was  needful  to  circumcise  and  to 
command  the  Gentiles  to  keep  the  law  of  Moses. 


GILFILLAJTS  SABBATH.  167 

Therefore  a  council  of  the  apostles  and  elders  was 
convened  to  consider  the  matter.  And  when  there 
had  been  much  disputing,  Peter  rose  up  and  said 
unto  them,  'Men  and  brethren,  ye  know  how  that 
a  good  while  ago  God  made  choice  among  us,  that 
the  Gentiles,  by  my  mouth,  should  hear  the  word 
of  the  Gospel,  and  believe.  And  God,  which 
knoweth  the  hearts,  bare  them  witness,  giving 
them  the  Holy  Ghost,  even  as  he  did  unto  us : 
and  put  no  difference  between  us  and  them,  puri 
fying  their  hearts  by  faith.  Now,  therefore,  why 
tempt  ye  God  to  put  a  yoke  upon  the  neck  of  the 
disciples,  which  neither  our  fathers  nor  we  were  able 
to  bear?'  Then  Paul  and  Barnabas  confirmed 
Peter's  words  by  relating  the  wonders  God  had 
wrought  among  the  Gentiles.  Afterwards  James 
gave  his  sentence,  and  the  result  of  council  was 
framed  into  an  encyclical  letter:  "The  apostles, 
and  elders,  and  brethren  send  greeting  unto  the 
brethren  which  are  of  the  Gentiles  in  Antioch  and 
Syria  and  Cilicia.  Forasmuch  as  we  have  heard 
that  certain  which  went  out  from  us  have  troubled 
you  with  words,  subverting  your  souls,  saying,  Ye 
must  be  circumcised  and  keep  the  law ;  to  whom 

we  gave  no  such  commandment It  seemed 

good  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  to  us,  to  lay  upon 
you  no  greater  burden  than  these  necessary  things : 
That  ye  abstain  from  meat  offered  to  idols,  and 
from  blood,  and  from  things  strangled,  and  from 
fornication  ;  from  which,  if  ye  keep  yourselves,  ye 
shall  do  well.  Fare  ye  well." 


168  SUMMER  REST. 

As  the  greater  includes  the  less,  the  abrogation 
of  the  Mosaic  law,  is  the  abrogation  of  the  Sab 
batic  law  so  far  as  the  latter  depends  for  its  force 
upon  its  incorporation  with  the  former.  If  it  were 
instituted  prior  to  and  distinct  from  the  Mosaic 
law,  or  if  it  were  exempted  from  the  disannulling 
of  the  latter,  we  may  still  be  under  a  Sabbath 
law.  We  have  only  to  call  upon  those  who  main 
tain  the  existence  of  such  a  law  to  produce  it. 
Until  they  do  this,  we  affirm  that  it  cannot  be 
done.  To  say,  with  Mr.  Gilfillan,  that  Abraham 
and  Noah  could  not  have  been  the  good  men 
they  were  without  it  may  answer  every  purpose 
in  the  pulpit,  but  has  no  foundation  in  logic. 
There  is  no  such  law,  no  semblance  of  such  law, 
and  no  reference  to  such  law  in  the  Bible,  until 
the  Israelites  were  assembled  in  the  wilderness 
of  Sin.  Then  we  have  a  circumstantial  account 
of  a  mandate  issued  to  them,  together  with  the 
reasons  for  such  issue,  which  mandate  about  a 
fortnight  afterwards  was  framed  into  a  law  and 
incorporated  into  a  code.  The  story  is  simple  and 
natural.  The  Lord  was  about  to  rain  bread  from 
heaven,  and,  for  the  express  purpose  "  that  I  may 
prove  them,  whether  they  will  walk  in  my  law 
or  no,"  they  were  to  gather  a  certain  quantity 
on  five  days,  to  double  it  on  the  sixth,  and  to 
gather  none  at  all  on  the  seventh.  The  experi 
ment  was  entirely  successful.  Some  obeyed  the 
precept  and  some  disobeyed.  Some  gathered  too 


GILF1LLAWS  SABBATH.  169 

much  on  the  five  days,  and  some  attempted  to 
gather  on  the  seventh,  exciting  the  indignant 
question,  "  How  long  refuse  ye  to  keep  my  com 
mandments  and  my  laws  ?  "  The  people,  child 
like  and  unquestioning,  obeyed  and  disobeyed  ac 
cording  to  their  several  dispositions.  The  rulers, 
further  advanced  in  mental  training,  received  an 
explanation  from  Moses.  u  To-morrow  is  the  rest 
of  the  Holy  Sabbath  unto  the  Lord."  Soon  after 
wards  it  was  generalized  into  a  law,  "  Remember 
the  Sabbath-day  to  keep  it  holy."  Mr.  Gilfillan 
advances  this  narrative,  to  show  that  there  had 
been  a  "  preceding  institution  of  the  Sabbath." 
We  adduce  it  as  the  account  of  the  original  insti 
tution  of  the  Sabbath.  Mr.  Gilfillan  reads  it,  and 
infers  from  it  that  "  if  we  would  not  impute  to  a 
sacred  writer  literary  inability  or  intentional  de 
ception,  we  have  no  alternative  but  to  believe 
that  the  Sabbath  was  instituted  at  the  creation." 
We  read  it,  and  accept  neither  alternative. 

The  only  text  cited  in  proof  of  a  pre-existent 
law  is  Genesis  ii.  2,  3,  which  gives  no  law  to 
man,  and  makes  no  allusion  either  to  law  or  man. 
It  is  the  statement  of  a  fact  concerning  God, 
which  we  but  faintly  comprehend  ;  it  states  no  fact 
concerning  man.  God's  Sabbath  existed  then,  but 
He  did  not  then  give  it  to  man.  What  that  Sab 
bath  was  we  do  not  know.  We  do  not  even 
know  what  was  meant  by  the  term  day,  some 
supposing  it  to  be  the  present  day  of  twenty-four 


170  SUMMER   REST. 

hours,  and  others  (begging  Mr.  Gilfillan's  pardon) 
equally  eminent  in  Christian  knowledge,  candor, 
and  clear-sightedness  supposing  it  to  stretch  over 
vast  ages,  and  to  measure  in  its  going  the  unseen, 
slow  processes  of  geologic  change.  And  as  the 
work-days  of  God  are  to  us  uncomprehended, 
and  for  the  present  incomprehensible,  so  must  the 
Sabbath  of  His  solitude  be.  The  loving  Creator 
bends  low  to  our  human  speech,  and  we  learn 
what  we  may  of  His  character  and  His  ways ; 
but  with  it  all,  the  wisest  among  us,  as  well  as  the 
little  child,  can  but  slightly  know  the  nature  of 
His  work,  His  rest,  His  blessing.  The  Bible 
comes  to  us  out  of  the  great  deep  of  a  mysterious 
past.  It  leaves  us  on  the  shore  of  a  mysterious 
future ;  and  though  its  promises,  precepts,  and 
examples  are  so  plain  that  the  wayfaring  man, 
though  a  fool,  need  not  err  therein,  yet  the  shad 
ows  of  its  infinite  source  linger  still  upon  its  open 
ing  pages,  and  the  glories  of  the  waiting  heavens 
fling  a  bewildering  radiance  upon  its  closing  lines. 
It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  two  versions  of 
the  ten  commandments  given,  one  in  the  twentieth 
chapter  of  Exodus,  the  other  in  the  fifth  chapter 
of  Deuteronomy.  The  first  gives  as  a  reason  of 
the  fourth  commandment,  "  For  in  six  days  the 
Lord  made  heaven  and  earth,  the  sea  and  all  that 
in  them  is,  and  rested  the  seventh  day  ;  wherefore 
the  Lord  blessed  the  Sabbath-day,  and  hallowed 
it."  The  second  version  makes  no  reference  to 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  171 

the  creation,  but  says,  "  And  remember  that  thou 
wast  a  servant  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  that  the 
Lord  thy  God  brought  thee  out  thence  through  a 
mighty  hand  and  by  a  stretched-out  arm  :  there 
fore  the  Lord  thy  God  commanded  thee  to  keep 
the  Sabbath-day." 

Here  are  two  entirely  distinct  reasons  given  for 
the  same  command.  It  may  be  said  that  the  one 
does  not  exclude  the  other  ;  that  both  may  have 
been  given  on  the  mountain,  though  only  one  is 
mentioned  at  a  time  ;  but  Moses,  after  reciting  the 
commandments  to  the  people  according  to  the 
second  version,  immediately  adds,  "  These  words 
the  Lord  spake  unto  all  your  assembly  in  the 
mount,  out  of  the  midst  of  the  fire,  of  the  cloud, 
and  of  the  thick  darkness,  with  a  great  voice :  and 
lie  added  no  more  :  and  he  wrote  them  in  two  ta 
bles  of  stone,  and  delivered  them  unto  me." 

The  preface  to  the  two  versions  is  identical. 
u  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God  which  have  brought  thee 
out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  out  of  the  house  of  bond 
age."  The  captivity  in  Egypt  was  the  great  ca 
lamity  of  the  Hebrews  :  the  deliverance  from  that 
captivity  the  great  event  in  their  history.  One 
day  in  seven  consecrated  to  rest  would  be  an 
appropriate  memento  of  their  redemption  from 
the  unceasing  toil  of  slavery.  Why  it  is,  that,  in 
spite  of  the  preponderance  of  evidence  in  favor  of 
the  second  version,  we  have  almost  universally  dis 
carded  it  and  adopted  the  first,  it  is  difficult  to  con- 


172  SUMMER  REST. 

jecture,  unless  it  be  that  even  the  most  thought 
less  among  us  knows  at  once  that  he  never  was  a 
servant  in  Egypt,  and  therefore  the  absurdity  of 
applying  the  commandment  to  an  American,  or  to 
any  one  but  a  Jew,  becomes  at  once  palpable. 

We  are  dealing  with  facts,  not  inferences  nor 
opinions.  It  is  a  fact  that  we  have  in  the  Bible 
an  account  of  a  Sabbath-day  set  apart  in  the  wil 
derness  of  Sin,  and  a  Sabbath  law  promulgated 
from  Sinai,  and  we  have  no  account  of  either  be 
fore  this  time.  This  is  enough.  We  are  not  con 
cerned  with  what  may  have  happened,  but  only 
with  what  Moses  has  recorded  as  having  actually 
happened.  But  Nehemiah  gives  stronger  proof 
than  this  negative  testimony.  When  the  children 
of  Israel  kept  their  solemn  fast,  the  Levites  stood 
upon  the  stairs  and  publicly  recounted  the  good 
ness  of  God  to  them  :  "  Thou  earnest  down  also 
upon  Mount  Sinai,  and  spakest  with  them  from 
heaven,  and  gavest  them  right  judgments,  and 
true  laws,  good  statutes  and  commandments  ;  and 
madest  known  unto  them  thy  holy  Sabbath."  If  the 
Sabbath  had  been  a  world-old  institution,  could 
God  have  made  it  knowrn  to  them  on  Sinai  ?  But 
Mr.  Gilfillan  says  :  "  To  insist  that  such  language 
establishes  the  origination  of  the  Sabbath  at  the 
time  to  which  it  refers  requires  us  no  less  to 
believe,  that  all  the  other  statutes  mentioned  in 
connection  with  that  institution  were  then  also 
enacted.  According  to  this  doctrine,  sacrifices, 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  173 

the  decalogue,  and  circumcision  must  have  then  in 
the  first  instance  been  appointed Circum 
cision,  like  the  Sabbath,  is  mentioned  as  given  at 
the  commencement  of  the  Levitical  dispensation: 
4  Moses  gave  unto  you  circumcision  ;  not  because 
it  is  of  Moses,  but  of  the  fathers.' ':  The  fact  that 
these  glaring  fallacies  have  escaped  the  eyes  of  the 
Sabbath  Committee  must  be  our  sole  excuse  for 
pointing  them  out.  Without  such  positive  proof 
we  should  assume  that  no  living  man,  save  Mr. 
Gilfillan,  could  fail  to  see  that  no  statute  is  men 
tioned  in  connection  with  the  Sabbath.  The  Sab 
bath  is  singled  out  from  all,  and  it  alone  is  said 
to  have  been  made  Jcnotvn  upon  Mount  Sinai.  A 
law  may  be  commanded  again  and  again,  a  judg 
ment  may  be  many  times  repeated  ;  but  an  insti 
tution  with  which  we  have  been  familiar  from  our 
infancy  cannot  rightly  be  said  to  be  made  known 
to  us  in  our  manhood.  "  Circumcision,  like  the 
Sabbath,  is  mentioned  as  given,"  says  Mr.  Gil 
fillan.  "  Circumcision,  unlike  the  Sabbath,"  he 
should  have  said.  This  is  a  sufficient  answer.  It 
may  not  be  amiss,  however,  to  show  Mr.  Gilfillan 
and  his  coadjutors  that  it  does  not  at  all  follow, 
because  good  statutes  and  commandments  were 
given  for  the  first  time  from  Mount  Sinai,  that 
none  were  ever  given  before.  He  misuses  a 
particular  for  a  universal.  "  Thou  gavest  them 
(some)  right  judgments  and  true  laws,"  said  the 
Levites.  Therefore,  "  Thou  gavest  them  (all) 


174  SUMMER   REST. 

\ 

right  judgments  and  true  laws,"  says  Mr.  Gilfillan. 
Although  circumcision  and  sacrifices  had  been  long 
employed,  Mr.  Gilfillan  will  hardly  deny  that 
many,  perhaps  the  great  bulk  of  precepts,  given 
upon  Mount  Sinai,  were  given  for  the  first  time  ; 
so  that  even  on  that  ground  the  Sabbath  may  have 
been  among  them,  while  from  the  popular  use  of 
"  make  known,"  it  must  have  been.  That  the  act 
of  giving  is  generally  limited  to  the  time  mentioned 
in  connection  with  it  is  evident  from  the  very  text 
instanced  to  prove  the  contrary.  "  Moses  gave 
unto  you  circumcision,"  said  Christ,  apparently 
using  the  word  Moses  in  a  general  sense  for  the 
law,  but  seeing  the  possibility  of  misapprehension, 
he  immediately  corrects  himself,  "  not  because  it 
is  of  Moses,  but  of  the  fathers."  Without  that 
correction  lie  might  be  supposed  to  say  that  cir 
cumcision  was  of  Moses.  As  the  .Sabbath  is  men 
tioned  without  any  such  qualifying  clause,  we  do 
suppose  that  it  was  of  Moses  and  not  of  the  fathers. 
Finding,  then,  that  the  New  Testament  abro 
gates  the  whole  code  of  laws  in  which  alone  any 
Sabbath  law  is  recorded,  we  infer  that  the  Sab 
bath  law  is  abrogated.  Confirmation  of  this  is  fur 
nished,  if  confirmation  be  needed,  by  the  unbroken 
silence  of  the  New  Testament  regarding  Sabbath- 
breaking.  Throughout  the  Old  Testament,  though 
its  precepts  grow  less  and  less  positive  and  more 
and  more  spiritual,  approaching  the  time  of  Christ, 
there  are  ever-recurring  warnings,  promises,  and 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  175 

exhortations  concerning  the  Sabbath.  In  the 
New  Testament  it  is  enjoined  upon  neither  Jew 
nor  Gentile.  Every  reference  made  to  the  Sab 
bath  is  made  in  rebuke  of  those  who  demand  its 
observance  or  complain  of  its  violation.  Every 
allusion  either  lessens  its  stringency  or  wholly 
destroys  its  force.  Nor  are  we  left  to  mere  in 
ference  or  negative  testimony.  Christ  issued 
commands  which  could  not  be  obeyed  without 
disregarding  not  merely  Pharisaic  traditions,  but 
Mosaic  laws,  regarding  the  Sabbath.  He  com 
manded  the  impotent  man  on  the  Sabbath-day 
to  take  up  his  bed  and  walk ;  and  the  Jews  had 
the  law  on  their  side  when  they  objected,  "  It  is 
not  lawful  for  thee  to  carry  thy  bed,"  since  the 
command,  "  Thou  shalt  not  do  any  work,"  had 
been  explained  by  God's  own  words  through  Jere 
miah,  "  Take  heed  to  yourselves,  and  bear  no  bur 
den  on  the  Sabbath-day."  Paul  expressly  transfers 
the  whole  matter  out  of  the  sphere  of  Divine  com 
mand  into  the  sphere  of  private  judgment.  "Who 
art  th on  that  judgest  another  man's  servant  ?  To 
his  own  master  he  standeth  or  falleth.  One  man 
esteemeth  one  day  above  another;  another  esteem- 
eth  every  day  alike.  Let  every  man  be  fully  per 
suaded  in  his  own  mind.  He  that  regardeth  the 
day,  regardeth  it  unto  the  Lord,  and  he  that  re 
gardeth  not  the  day,  unto  the  Lord  he  doth  not 
regard  it."  Christ,  he  said,  hath  blotted  out  "  the 
handwriting  of  ordinances  that  was  against  us, 


176  SUMMER  REST. 

which  was  contrary  to  us,  and  took  it  out  of  the 

way,  nailing  it  to  his  cross Let  no  man 

therefore  judge  you  in  meat,  or  in  drink,  or  in 
respect  of  an  holy-day,  or  of  the  new  moon,  or 
of  the  Sabbath-days,  which  are  a  shadow  of  things 
to  come  ;  but  the  body  is  of  Christ." 

The  Christian  world  has  universally  recognized 
the  abrogation  of  the  Sabbath.  Nowhere  does  it 
confer  upon  the  seventh  day  any  distinction  above 
the  other  days.  In  this  it  is  right. 

But  it  has  widely  and  strenuously  sought  to 
transfer  to  the  first  day  of  the  week  the  duties  and 
obligations  of  the  seventh  day  ;  to  extend  to  all 
Christians  forever  what  was  allotted  only  to  the 
Jews  for  a  limited  period.  It  is  not  content  to 
rest  on  the  proper  ground  of  human  judgment, 
but  with  presumptuous  hand  it  brings  forward  a 
"  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  Nay,  it  does  worse  than 
this.  It  not  only  transfers  the  commandment,  but 
it  tampers  with  it.  The  law  says,  "  Thou  shalt 
not  do  any  work,  thou,  nor  thy  son,  nor  thy 
daughter,  thy  man-servant,  nor  thy  maid-servant, 
nor  thy  cattle."  Its  modern  substitute  says,  "  Thou 
mayst  do  some  work,  in  fact  a  good  deal,  espe 
cially  thy  maid-servant.  Thy  cattle  may  work 
enough  to  carry  thee  to  church,  either  to  preach 
or  to  hear  a  sermon,  though  thou  art  quite  able  to 
walk,  or  couldst  have  made  the  journey  the  even 
ing  before.  But  thou  shalt  in  no  wise  wander  in 
the  fields,  or  drive  across  the  country  unless  thou 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  177 

have  a  meeting-house  in  view.  And  for  the  most 
part  thou  shalt  go  to  church  all  day,  and  devote 
what  time  is  left  to  Sunday  school  and  evening 
meeting." 

So  the  Christian  world  picks  to  pieces  the  Fourth 
Commandment,,  separates  such  part  as  it  is  con 
venient  to  observe  from  the  parts  it  is  convenient 
to  disregard,  adds  thereto  whatever  seems  good  in 
its  eyes,  and  sets  up  this  nondescript  animal  with  a 
loud  cry,  "  These  be  thy  gods,  O  Israel !  " 

In  this  it  is  wrong,  —  teaching  for  doctrine  the 
commandments  of  men.  But  though  the  men  who 
issue  these  commandments  be  numerous,  learned, 
and  powerful,  we  can  only  say,  "  When  for  the 
time  ye  ought  to  be  teachers,  ye  have  need  that 
one  teach  you  again,  which  be  the  first  principles 
of  the  oracles  of  God !  "  Yea,  though  an  angel 
from  heaven  preach  any  other  gospel  than  that 
which  Christ  and  the  Apostles  preached,  let 
him  be  accursed.  We  call  no  man  master,  for 
Christ  is  our  Master.  Let  those  then  who  would 
graft  the  Jewish  Sabbath  upon  our  Christian  sys 
tem  produce  their  Divine  authority  for  doing  so. 
We  have  chapter  and  verse  for  the  enforcement 
of  the  Sabbath  upon  the  Hebrews.  We  have 
chapter  and  verse  for  the  abrogation  of  the  Sab 
bath.  Let  us  have  chapter  and  verse  for  the 
establishment  of  the  Christian  Sabbath.  Until 
this  is  done,  we  confidently  affirm  that  it  can 
not  be  done. 

8*  L 


178  .        SUMMER  REST. 

The  few  instances,  in  the  New  Testament,  in 
which  the  first  day  of  the  week  is  mentioned, 
make  against,  rather  than  for,  its  Sabbatic  claim. 
"When  the  Sabbath-day  was  in  force,  it  was  called 
always  the  Sabbath-day,  not  the  Seventh  day.  If 
the  first  day  were  meant  to  be  the  heir  of  all  the 
glories,  the  duties,  and  the  mementos  of  the 
seventh,  would  it  not  also  have  inherited  the 
name  ?  Is  it  probable  that  so  great  a  change 
would  have  been  made,  with  no  change  of  name 
or  addition  of  title  ? 

Shall  we  then  close  our  churches,  open  our 
workshops,  and  reduce  our  Sunday  to  the  level 
of  Monday  ?  Most  assuredly  not. 

First,  though  the  laws  made  for  Hebrews  alone 
are  not  binding  on  Americans,  yet  these  things 
are  written  for  our  admonition.  The  more  we 
learn  of  God  and  of  His  world  the  more  surely 
we  see  that  His  commands  are  not  mere  arbitrary 
mandates,  but  wise  provisions  for  human  needs. 
Many  directions,  whose  bearings  are  hidden  from 
the  common  sight,  science  and  experience  recog 
nize  as  wise  social  or  sanitary  regulations.  When, 
therefore,  God  commanded  the  Jews  to  refrain 
from  labor  one  day  in  seven,  we  do  not  regard  it 
as  an  indifferent  matter.  We  do  not  say  it  might 
as  well  have  been  one  day  in  three,  or  one  day  in 
eight,  had  God  so  chosen,  nor  do  we  think  that 
God  considered  a  day  of  idleness  and  uselessness 
the  best  way  of  commemorating  his  creative  sover- 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  179 

eignty.  We  regard  it  rather  as  a  significant  hint, 
that  the  human  being  is  so  organized  as  to  need, 
besides  his  regularly  recurring  sleep,  one  seventh 
part  of  time  for  rest.  We  consider  the  time  thus 
devoted  to  rest  as  not  thrown  away,  but  most  wise 
ly  employed.  This  view  is  confirmed  by  our  own 
personal  experience  and  observation,  and  by  those 
of  many  wise  and  good  men.  We  believe  the 
time  will  come  when  it  will  be  universally  adopted, 
—  when  the  world  will  see  that  its  work  is  sooner 
and  better  done  by  six  days  of  labor  and  one  of 
rest,  than  by  unintermitting  toil.  This  truth, 
however,  if  it  be  a  truth,  belongs  to  the  domain 
of  science.  It  is  only  hinted  at,  not  laid  down, 
in  revelation.  On  strictly  reasonable  grounds,  we 
infer  it  to  be  the  duty  of  every  man,  a  duty 
founded  in  his  nature  and  recognized  by  God, 
to  rest  from  labor  one  seventh  part  of  the  time, 
and  so  to  arrange  his  affairs  that  those  depend 
ent  upon  or  ministering  to  him  shall  be  able 
to  command  an  equal  rest.  And  as  this  can  be 
most  effectually  done  when  all  act  in  harmony, 
and  as  the  first  day  of  the  week  has  been  for  ages, 
and  is  now  most  nearly  redeemed  from  labor  and 
consecrated  to  rest,  it  is  proper  to  adopt  this  as 
the  rest-day,  thus  at  once  consulting  one's  own 
convenience  and  paying  one's  deference  to  the 
world's  wisdom.  If  this  rest  is  allowed  to  be  for 
the  general  good,  it  is  a  fit  subject  of  legislation, 
to  the  extent  of  protecting  men  in  their  right  of 


180  SUMMER  REST. 

rest.  And  though  we  may  not  and  do  not,  by- 
legislation,  force  upon  any  man  any  religious  ob 
servance  of  the  day,  we  may  by  legislation  pre 
vent  him  from  hindering  others  in  their  religious 
observances. 

But  this,  though  a  just  and  healthy  view  as  far 
as  it  goes,  is  a  low  and  material  one.  Man's 
highest  rest  is  not  in  inactivity.  The  world  is 
weary  through  sin,  and  her  children,  over-worked, 
sometimes  need  too  much  on  Sunday  the  mere 
rest  of  inactivity.  Many  more  need  the  day  for 
closer  and  more  tender  intercourse  with  wife  and 
child  than  the  working-days  can  give.  They 
need  it  for  calmness  and  reflection,  for  friendly 
interchange  of  thought  and  feeling,  for  the  up- 
springing  of  love,  that,  repressed  too  much,  de 
cays  ;  for  a  fuller  development  of  all  the  gentleness 
and  amenities  of  life,  for  a  little  curve  and  verdure 
to  soften  the  harshness  of  a  too  severe  destiny. 
But  especially  and  universally  we  need  the  op 
portunity  of  the  day  for  direct  and  avowed  social 
worship.  Honest  work  is  as  good  in  its  way  as 
worship,  but  it  is  not  worship.  Love  works 
mightily  for  its  object,  but  none  the  less  it  craves 
direct  expression.  Knightly  feats  will  never  super 
sede  the  hunger  for  sweet  phrase.  Words  alone 
are  nothing,  but  works  alone  can  never  give 
heart's-ease.  There  is  not  one  stone  upon  another 
of  the  Temple  wherein  the  Most  High  once  de 
lighted  to  dwell  ;  nevertheless,  the  Apostle  ex- 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  181 

horted  his  converts  not  to  forsake  the  assembling 
of  themselves  together.  There  is  neither  priest 
nor  sacrifice ;  but  as  children  of  a  common  family, 
we  need  to  go  up  with  the  multitude  and  pay  our 
offerings  of  broken,  and  contrite,  and  therefore 
happy  hearts.  We  need  to  recognize  the  kinship 
of  man,  and  kindle  in  our  souls  the  fire  of  sympa 
thy  that  comes  only  from  contact.  Rich  and  poor, 
we  should  meet  together  in  the  great  congrega 
tions,  and,  forgetting  all  minor  distinctions,  bow 
our  knees  unto  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  of  whom  the  whole  family  in  heaven  and 
earth  is  named. 

We  are  not  bound  to  this  weekly  worship  because 
the  Apostles  commanded  it  to  their  congregations, 
'nor  because  the  disciples  were  wont  to  assemble 
on  the  first  day  of  the  week,  though  these  are 
considerations  which  should  influence  us ;  but  be 
cause  our  inmost  natures  demand  it.  The  Apos 
tles  directed  weekly  contributions  and  a  weekly 
participation  in  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  sanctioned, 
at  least,  a  social  life  which  held  all  things  common ; 
none  of  which  things  we  do.  But  because  our 
hearts  burn  within  us  to  preach  righteousness  in 
the  great  congregation,  to  declare  the  faithfulness 
and  salvation  of  God,  to  celebrate  his  loving- 
kindness  and  his  truth,  we  go  up  to  the  house 
of  God,  with  the  voice  of  joy  and  praise,  with  a 
multitude  that  keep  holy-day. 

But  more  than  this  :  If  the  Sabbath  of  the  Jews 


182  SUMMER  REST. 

was  instituted  not  only  for  the  purpose  of  giving 
them  needed  rest,  but  of  commemorating  the  crea 
tion,  how  much  greater  a  cause  have  we  to  com 
memorate  !  Redemption  outshines  creation.  God 
spake,  and  the  world  was  made  ;  He  died  before 
it  could  be  redeemed.  Jesus  Christ  was  conceived 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  suf 
fered  under  Pontius  Pilate,  was  crucified,  dead, 
and  buried.  The  third  day,  as  it  began  to  dawn 
toward  the  first  day  of  the  week,  he  came  up  from 
the  grave,  scattered  the  darkness  and  despair,  and 
for  all  and  for  ever  brought  life  and  immortality  to 
light.  Did  God  sanctify  the  seventh  day  because 
that  in  it  he  rested  from  all  the  work  which  he 
created  and  made  ?  Let  us,  for  love,  not  duty, 
sanctify  this  infinitely  more  blessed  day,  this  first 
day  of  the  week,  on  which  was  sealed  the  truth  of 
our  redemption  from  death  and  sin.  So  long  as 
the  stable  earth  blossoms  under  the  tread  of  human 
feet,  let  human  hearts  celebrate  this  glorious  day 
which  saw  the  Lord  arise.  It  is  no  Sabbath  of 
restriction  and  penalty,  but  the  Redeemer's  gift, 
sacred  and  over-full  with  joy  of  birthday  and 
thanksgiving.  The  bud  of  every  anniversary 
flowers  in  the  bright  hope  of  this  weekly  festival. 
It  is  a  day  for  congratulation  and  jubilee,  for  songs 
of  praise  and  adoration,  —  a  day  of  triumph  and  of 
victory.  Day  of  days,  day  of  days,  that  saw  the 
Lord  arise  !  Never  enough  to  be  exulted  over  and 
rejoiced  in.  Let  thy  mountains  and  hills  break 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  183 

forth  into  singing,  O  Earth,  that  thrilled  once  to 
the  tread  of  the  Redeemer's  feet,  and  let  all  the 
trees  of  the  field  clap  their  hands.  Rejoice,  O  man, 
forever  exalted  in  lending  thy  form  to  the  Son  of 
God,  rejoice  on  this  His  fesurrection-morn.  Go 
up  into  His  courts  with  psalms  and  hymns  and 
spiritual  songs.  Let  the  whole  earth  be  garlanded 
with  gladness  and  the  breath  of  her  life  ascend,  a 
sweet  incense  to  the  Holy  One,  the  Blessed,  the 
Beloved,  our  Friend,  our  Redeemer. 

Is  this  a  day  to  wrangle  about  ?  Is  this  a  day 
to  be  prescribed  with  ought,  and  must,  and  shall? 
Strange  we  do  not  see  that  such  support  is  fatal! 
Men  may  be  exhorted  to  rest  on  that  day,  as  they 
may  be  exhorted  to  cleanliness  and  prudence ;  but 
its  worth  as  a  day  of  sacredness  and  worship  is  in 
its  spontaneity.  Neither  Christ  nor  his  Apostles 
ever  commanded  to  keep  the  Sabbath-day.  They 
strove  to  rescue  the  life  from  the  dominion  of  sin, 
to  lift  it  into  the  light ;  and  when  the  heart  is 
right,  when  the  face  is  turned  toward  God,  and  the 
mind  is  fixed  on  God,  and  love  is  the  universal  law, 
will  there  be  any  trouble  about  Sunday? 

Is  it  said  that  we  have  not  yet  arrived  at  that 
point?  that  men  are  not  yet  spiritual  enough  to 
dispense  with  external  restrictions  ?  Perhaps  so  ; 
but  the  Maker  of  men  would  be  likely  to  know 
when  they  are  ready  to  ascend  from  one  plane 
to  another,  and  if  it  seemed  to  him  that,  after  four 
thousand  years  of  precept  and  practice,  they  had 


184  SUMMER  REST. 

become  sufficiently  rooted  and  grounded  in  the 
ideas  of  Divine  sovereignty  and  human  duty,  of 
obedience,  chastity,  justice,  and  what  may  be  called 
the  outside  virtues,  to  be  ready  to  be  rooted  and 
grounded  in  love,  is  it  worth  while  for  us  to  say, 
"  Not  so,  Lord"?  There  is  so  much  violence  in 
the  earth,  that,  we  can  hardly  help  questioning, 
sometimes,  whether  it  would  not  have  been  wiser 
in  God  to  have  delayed  his  work  of  redemption, 
to  have  kept  us  under  the  stress  of  external  law  a 
few  centuries  longer,  till  the  fierceness  of  our  man 
ners  should  become  a  little  more  softened,  and  our 
hard  hearts  mellowed  to  receive  the  truth.  But 
if  God  does  not  know  times  and  seasons,  no  one 
does ;  and  the  question  is,  not  what  it  would  have 
been  well  for  him  to  do,  but  what  he  did  do.  If 
he  saw  fit  to  abolish  the  law  of  ordinances,  and 
trust  to  the  law  of  love,  the  part  of  faith  and  mod 
esty  is  to  do  the  best  we  can  without  the  one,  not 
to  attempt  to  reinstate  it,  and  thus  insult  the  other. 
It  is  presumption,  not  humility,  it  is  rebellion,  not 
loyalty,  that  would  set  up  what  God  has  put  down. 
But,  it  is  asked,  if  Sunday  rest  is  granted  to  be 
for  man's  physical  good,  and  if  Sunday  worship 
is  allowed  to  be  not  only  a  source  of  spiritual 
benefit,  but  the  natural  outgrowth  of  a  high  spir 
itual  condition,  why  attempt  to  pull  down  the 
strongest  props  of  the  Sabbath  ?  If  the  noblest 
life  will  give  just  such  a  Sabbath  as  the  Sab 
bath  preachers  desire,  why  not  have  the  Sabbath 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  185 

preache.d  ?  If  the  prevalent  belief  be  not  strictly 
scriptural,  yet  if  it  tends  to  useful  ends,  why  dis 
turb  it  ?  We  answer,  Because  truth  is  truth,  — 
too  sacred  and  steadfast  a  thing  to  be  warped  to 
any  man's  uses ;  because  the  wrath  of  God  is  re 
vealed  from  heaven  against  all  ungodliness  and 
unrighteousness  of  men,  who  hold  the  truth  in 
unrighteousness  ;  because  to  fortify  the  truth  by  a 
"  thus  saith  the  Lord,"  when  the  Lord  has  not 
spoken,  is  to  change  the  truth  of  God  into  a  lie. 
So  doing  we  take  a  false  position,  and  foolish  as 
false.  Our  strength  is  made  weakness,  and  our 
weakness  wickedness.  Men  have  an  instinct  of 
the  falsehood,  and,  not  discerning  the  truth,  cast 
away  both  together  and  profane  their  own  souls. 
Every  sermon  that  is  preached,  and  every  tract 
that  is  issued  directly  inculcating  as  a  Bible  law 
the  observance  of  the  Sabbath-day,  is  not  only 
useless,  but  mischievous.  It  calls  attention  away 
from  sin,  which  God  hates,  to  a  rite  which  He  has 
discarded.  Instead  of  exhorting  people  to  keep 
the  Sabbath-day  holy,  we  should  exhort  them  to 
keep  their  own  hearts  holy.  Sabbath-keeping  as 
Sabbath-keeping  is  dangerous.  It  tends  to  formal 
ism,  not  to  Christianity.  What  saith  the  Apostle 
Paul  ?  It  is  the  one  exception  to  the  annulling 
referred  to  before.  "  The  law  is  not  made  for  a 
righteous  man,  but  for  the  lawless  and  disobedient, 
for  the  ungodly  and  for  sinners,  for  unholy  and 
profane,  for  murderers  of  fathers  and  murderers  of 


186  SUMMER  REST. 

mothers,  for  man-slayers."  Remember  this,  you 
who  enforce  the  law.  When  you  class  yourselves 
with  man-slayers  and  murderers,  when  you  betake 
yourself  to  the  law,  you  count  the  blood  of  the  cov 
enant  an  unholy  thing,  and  crucify  the  Son  of  God 
afresh.  Those  who  will  not  give  themselves  up 
to  the  Gospel  are  indeed  under  the  law,  but  for 
condemnation,  not  for  salvation.  For  what  the  law 
could  not  do  before  Christ  came,  it  can  never  do. 
To  adopt  Judaism  is  to  reject  Christ.  And  what 
is  it  to  reject  Christ? 

A  Sabbath  imposed  from  without  is  an  easier 
thing  to  preach  and  to  practice  than  a  Sabbath 
springing  from  the  soul,  its  ornament  and  delight. 
The  one  is  obvious,  exact,  tangible.  It  gathers 
religious  duty  into  a  visible  shape  and  a  limited 
time,  and  does  not  interfere  with  the  other  six 
days.  It  lies  on  the  surface  of  life,  and  does  not 
meddle  with  its  depths.  It  gives  rise  to  no  doubts, 
and  demands  no  nice  distinctions.  The  morning 
and  the  evening  are  the  first  day,  and  there  is  an 
end  of  the  matter. 

But  to  keep  the  soul's  Sabbath  is  a  work  of 
quite  another  quality.  It  is  indefinite,  exacting, 
unending.  It  goes  down  into  the  deep  places,  and 
concerns  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart.  It 
is  not  satisfied  with  one  day's  prayer  and  praise, 
but  it  lays  hold  on  every  day,  and  considers  noth 
ing  human  foreign  to  itself.  Its  Divine  radiance 
shines  down  through  all  the  week,  and  every  day 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  187 

is  flooded  with  the  heavenly  light.  Preach  the 
gospel  of  pure  hearts,  not  of  new  moons  and  Sab 
bath-days.  Preach  the  gospel  of  a  holy  life,  and 
let  every  man  judge  for  himself  what  best  helps 
him  to  lead  a  holy  life.  Cease  the  attempt  to  es 
tablish  what  God  has  overthrown,  and  show  the 
people  that  without  faith  it  is  impossible  to  please 
Him.  Show  them  that  it  is  lying  lips,  impure 
thoughts,  dishonest  gains,  unpaid  debts,  unkind 
words,  materialism,  and  sensuality,  and  selfish 
ness,  that  are  an  abomination  to  the  Lord,  not 
Sunday  walks.  Instead  of  imposing  Sabbath-keep 
ing  upon  the  ungodly,  show  the  ungodly  that  no 
Sabbath  is  possible  to  them.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  keeping  the  Sabbath  unless  the  heart  keeps 
it ;  and  when  the  heart  keeps  holy-day  all  days  are 
holy. 

J.  Well? 

H.  Well  it  is  then. 

I.  Thank  you.  Do  you  think  it  sounds  lordly 
enough  ? 

H.  Lordly? 

I.  Why  yes.  It  must  have  a  certain  magiste 
rial  weight  to  secure  confidence,  —  a  sort  of  high- 
and-mighty-ness.  I  should  not  want  it  to  sound 
like  me. 

H.  Like  whom,  then  ? 

/.  O,  no  one  in  particular.  Like  ministers. 
Like  theological  authorities.  Has  it  in  the  least 


188  SUMMER   REST. 

the  air  of  Professor  Park  or  Scott's  Bible?  Do 
you  suppose  the  world  can  be  — 

H.  Wheedled. 

I.  Well,  wheedled,  into  thinking  it  came  from 
Andover  or  Princeton,  if  it  should  be  printed  in 
any  of  the  reviews  ?  I  have  made  a  most  unspar 
ing  use  of  u  we." 

H.  After  mature  reflection,  with  a  glass  of  high 
magnifying  power,  an  experienced  and  skilful  stu 
dent  of  style  might  perhaps  detect  certain  minute 
points  or  pellicles  which  would  lead  him  to  suspect 
that  Professor  Park  did  not  write  it.  But  it  is  not 
the  fault  of  the  "  we."  That  is  a  great  stroke.  It 
comes  in  now  and  then  writh  immense  force.  I 
don't  hesitate  to  say  you  have  added  a  hundred 
per  cent  to  your  substance  of  doctrine  by  that 
shrewd  little  arrangement. 

I.  And  it  did  not  seem  so  very  long  did  it,  when 
you  had  once  fairly  grappled  with  it  ? 

H.  Not  so  long  as  if  there  had  been  a  dozen 
pages  more.  But  have  you  not  rather  laid  your 
self  open  to  the  charge  of  slighting  the  Old  Tes 
tament?  I  suppose  you  do  not  mean  to  dis 
courage  an  acquaintance  with  it. 

I.  Surely  not.  It  is  the  best  book  we  have  next 
to  the  New  Testament,  —  profitable  for  doctrine, 
for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruction  in  right 
eousness. 

Why,  it  is  just  like  the  Mammoths  and  the  Ple- 
siosaurians  and  the  Megatheriums.  We  study  them 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  189 

with  intense  interest.  The  knowledge  enlarges 
our  minds:  we  learn  something  of  the  laws  of 
life,  and  are  more  deeply  impressed  with  the 
power  and  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God.  But 
when  we  wish  to  find  how  to  manage  our  sheep 
and  cows  we  go  to  the  Massachusetts  Ploughman 
and  the  New  England  Farmer.  It  is  harnessing 

O  O 

the  mastodons  to  our  hay-carts  that  makes  the 
trouble.  It  was  yoking  the  Plesiosaurians  to  our 
ploughs  that  fastened  American  Slavery  upon 
Moses.  The  Christian  conscience  of- the  country 
would  not  suffer  it  to  remain  there  ;  but  it  did 
so  at  the  expense  of  its  logic.  So  far  as  a  pre 
cept  goes,  I  am  just  as  much  commanded  to  pin 
my  servant's  ear  to  the  door  with  an  awl  as  I  am 
to  keep  the  Sabbath-day.  Rightly  understood,  the 
rules  which  God  gave  regarding  Hebrew  slavery 
show  His  goodness  just  as  clearly  as  the  Fourth 
Commandment.  Both  were  given  in  love  and 
care  for  human  welfare,  not  with  a  selfish  regard 
for  his  own  will  and  pleasure,  or  with  an  unjust 
disregard  of  the  rights  or  pleasure  of  any.  Wrong 
ly  understood,  both  may  be  wrested  over  to  the 
side  of  injustice. 

If.  Yes,  and  we  are  too  apt  to  look  upon  the 
Jewish  Sabbath  as  something  hard,  rigid,  and 
unpleasant,  whereas  it  was  a  mark  of  thoughtful 
tenderness  on  God's  part.  He  imposed  no  onerous 
duty.  The  sole  thing  he  insisted  on  was  rest  for 
man  and  beast.  Mindful  too  of  the  lowly,  he  pro- 


190  SUMMER  REST. 

vides  "  that  thy  man-servant  and  thy  maid-servant 
may  rest  as  well  as  thou."  In  fact,  I  suspect  the 
Jewish  Sabbath  was  much  more  a  holiday  than  is 
generally  supposed. 

I.  It  turns  on  what  was  the  meaning  to  the 
Jews  of  the  word  "holy." 

H.  They  were  forbidden  to  work,  but  I  do  not 
find  anywhere  that  they  were  forbidden  to  play 
upon  the  holy  day.  Nehemiah  helps  us  to  an  un 
derstanding  of  the  word.  When  he  was  recon 
structing  Israel  he  read  the  law  to  the  people  — 

I.  Yes,  and  that  was  not  all ;  for  he  read  it 
distinctly,  he  takes  care  to  tell  us,  and  gave  the 
sense,  and  caused  them  to  understand  the  reading. 
That  is  something  worth  while. 

H.  And  then  he  told  them,  "  This  day  is  holy 
unto  the  Lord  your  God."  How  were  they  to 
spend  a  holy  day  ?  "Go  your  way,  eat  the  fat, 
and  drink  the  sweet,  and  send  portions  unto  them 
for  whom  nothing  is  prepared  :  for  this  day  is  holy 
unto  our  Lord :  neither  be  ye  sorry  ;  for  the  joy 
of  the  Lord  is  your  strength." 

I.  Why,  it  was  a  sort  of  Thanksgiving  Day. 

If.  The  people  made  it  so,  certainly,  for  they 
all  "  went  their  way  to  eat,  and  to  drink,  and  to 
send  portions,  and  to  make  great  mirth,  because 
they  had  understood  the  words  that  were  declared 
unto  them." 

I.  There  !  now  you  see  what  comes  of  having 
people  understand  the  Bible  instead  of  merely 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  191 

reading  it.  If  we  understood  what  we  read,  we 
should  be  as  mirthful  as  they.  But  how  Jonathan 
Edwards  would  have  quarrelled  with  Nehemiah 
for  such  monstrous  laxity.  Do  you  remember 
one  of  his  seven  hundred  or  so  good  resolutions 
was,  "Never  to  utter  anything  that  is  sportive, 
or  matter  of  laughter,  on  the  Lord's  Day  "  ? 

If.  I  dare  say  Edwards  and  Nehemiah  have 
talked  the  matter  over  since  and  come  to  a  better 
understanding.  But  it  is  significant  that  all  the 
examples  of  Sabbath-breaking  in  the  Bible  —  at 
least  I  remember  no  others  —  are  of  work  done  on 
the  Sabbath.  There  is  no  example  of  its  violation 
by  any  kind  of  amusement. 

I.  There  is  not  much  in  the  Bible  about  play 
ing,  any  way. 

H.  No.  There  is  a  passage  in  Jeremiah  where 
the  Lord  says,  "  but  hallow  the  Sabbath-day,  to 
do  no  work  therein  "  ;  as  if  the  abstaining  from 
work  was  hallowing  it. 

I.  I  think  we  fall  into  the  same  mistake  about 
the  Puritan  Sunday  that  we  do  about  the  Jewish 
Sabbath.  I  do  not  believe  it  was  nearly  as  tire 
some,  nor  the  Puritans  themselves  nearly  as  mo 
rose,  as  they  are  often  supposed  to  be.  I  have 
seen  a  good  deal  of  that  part  of  it  that  has  de 
scended  to  us,  and  I  never  found  it  tiresome.  It 
has  only  pleasant  associations  for  me. 

H.  Doubtless  its  character  would  depend  a  good 
deal  on  individuals.  It  would  bear  harder  on 


I  w  n  n  ff  y? 


192  SUMMER  REST. 

some  than  on  others,  and  would  be  a  severer  thing 
in  some  families  than  in  others. 

I  notice  you  have  spoken  as  if  the  New  Testa 
ment  were  not  always  binding  on  us. 

I.  Its  principles  are  always  binding  on  us,  but 
it  belongs  to  ourselves  to  adjust  our  practice  to 
those  principles.  We  all  do  this.  It  is  only 
when  we  say  we  do  it  that  objections  are  raised. 
Many  commands  of  Christ  Christians  accept, 
others  they  reject,  and  others  they  profess  to  obey 
only  in  part.  They  hold  as  a  reserved  right  the 
application  of  his  principles.  Christ  bade,  "Love 
thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  We  obey  him  after 
a  fashion.  He  bade  also,  "  Swear  not  at  all," 
which  we  heed  not  at  all.  He  says  again,  "  Pro 
vide  neither  scrip  for  your  journey,  neither  two 
coats,  neither  shoes."  We  do  or  do  not,  accord 
ing  to  our  convenience.  All  I  say  is,  if  one  man 
uses  his  judgment  to  disregard  one  precept,  he  has 
no  right  to  forbid  another  man  to  use  his  judgment 
in  disregarding  another.  Still  less  has  he  a  right 
to  object  to  our  saying  that  we  ought  to  use  our 
judgment  in  determining  what  part  of  Christ's 
teachings  were  meant  for  us.  What  is  true  of 
Christ's  teachings  is,  of  course,  true  of  his  Apostles' 
teachings.  They  applied  the  Gospel  to  the  society 
of  Rome  and  Corinth  and  Galatia  under  the  em 
perors.  We  have  to  apply  it  to  America  under 
presidents.  To  know  what  they,  divinely  inspired, 
did  is  a  great  help  in  deciding  what  we  ought  to 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  193 

do,  but  it  does  not  at  all  dispense  with  our  own 
judgment.  And  if  Saint  Paul  were  now  living, 
no  doubt  lie  would  be  the  very  first  to  condemn 
this  blind  adherence  to  the  letter  of  his  epistles, 
and  the  blind  violation  of  their  spirit,  which  has 
wrought  so  much  disaster  to  the  best  interests  of 
man.  But  as  with  the  teachings  of  Christ  so  with 
those  of  the  Apostles  and  of  other  sacred  writers, 
however  strenuously  we  insist  on  adherence  to  the 
letter,  in  our  practice  we  consult  only  tradition, 
our  own  will,  or  prejudice,  or  judgment.  Cer 
tain  passages  we  take  literally,  and  certain  others 
figuratively  or  spiritually,  with  no  guide  but  our 
own  judgment,  and  often  not  even  that ;  we 
simply  go  with  our  denomination.  Certain  passa 
ges  we  take  with  qualifications  and  certain  others 
without.  But  if  a  person,  in  the  use  of  his  judg 
ment  or  following  his  denomination,  makes  a  dif 
ferent  classification  from  ours,  him  we  oppose,  and 
it  shall  go  hard  but  we  call  names,  — "  ration 
alist  "  or  "  neologist." 

If.  Yes.  I  remember  a  good  illustration.  One 
of  our  ablest  Orthodox  writers,  a  few  days  ago,  in 
reviewing  Dr.  Bushnell's  last  book,  charges  that 
his  reduction  of  the  Biblical  doctrine  of  the  Devil 
to  a  mythical  personification  of  evil,  and  of  the 
account  of  the  fall  to  a  poetic  representation,  ad 
mits  a  principle  of  interpretation  fatal  alike  to  the 
historical  and  the  moral  weight  of  the  Scriptures. 
He  quite  overlooks  the  fact  that  Dr.  Bushnell  does 


194  SUMMER  REST. 

not  admit  the  destroying  monster.  It  was  there 
before.  In  fact,  the  Devil  gets  into  the  garden 
only  by  a  figure.  In  the  original  narrative  he  is 
not  once  mentioned.  It  is  a  serpent,  and  noth 
ing  else  ;  a  beast  of  the  field.  If  we  can  figure 
the  serpent  into  the  Devil,  why  can  we  not  figure 
the  Devil  into  evil  ?  There  is  not  nearly  so  broad 
a  gulf  between  the  last  two  as  between  the  first 
two. 

I.  You  know  Saint  John  speaks  of  "  that  old 
serpent,  called  the  Devil." 

H.  I  don't  know  that  he  means  this  old  serpent, 
though  he  probably  does,  but  he  calls  him  also  the 
great  dragon,  and  the  whole  is  the  description  of  a 
great  wonder  that  appeared  in  heaven.  It  is  all  a 
figure  or  vision,  and  seems  rather  to  indicate  that 
the  account  in  Genesis  may  also  be  an  allegory. 
Certainly  the  flaming  sword  of  the  first  book  of  the 
Bible  sounds  as  mythic  as  the  scarlet  woman  of 
the  last ;  and  surely,  too,  the  farther  back  we  go 
into  the  night  of  time,  the  more  we  look  for  alle 
gory.  It  is  no  more  literal  to  say  "  the  serpent 
said  unto  the  woman  "  than  "  this  is  my  body," 
and  it  is  just  as  natural  for  human  flesh  to  be 
changed  into  bread  as  for  a  snake  to  use  human 
speech.  It  is  a  merely  arbitrary  rule  that  com 
mands  a  mythical  interpretation  in  one  place  and 
forbids  it  in  another,  on  the  ground  of  the  fatality 
of  mythical  interpretation. 

But  come,  here  is  another  point.     How  do  you 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  195 

account  for  the  fact,  that  so  many  criminals  trace 
back  the  beginnings  of  their  evil  course  to  Sabbath- 
breaking  ? 

I.  I  should  think  I  was  a  candidate  for  ordina 
tion,  and  you  the  Examining  Council. 

H.  Heaven  forbid  ! 

I.  Why  should  Heaven  forbid  ? 

H.  O,  never  mind  !  Go  on  with  your  Sabbath- 
breaking.  Don't  get  too  many  irons  in  the  fire. 

I.  Don't  you  believe  in  Councils  ? 

H.  In  their  existence,  yes.  If  there  is  no  Sab 
bath,  why  is  its  violation  injurious,  a  la  Milesian  ? 

I.  Don't  you  believe  in  their  expediency  ? 

H.  Partially.  Are  the  criminals  then  self-de 
ceived  ? 

I.  Which  part  of  them  do  you  believe  in  ? 

H.  Of  the  criminals  ?  In  the  whole  man,  mind, 
body,  and  estate. 

/.  And  which  part  of  the  Councils  ? 

H.  (With  a  groan.)  I  believe  in  the  ministers 
coming  together  and  interchanging  friendly  greet 
ing,  and  eating  a  good  dinner  if  it  is  offered  them, 
and  ordaining  their  man  — 

L  Thou  — 

H.  Don't  interrupt.     If  you  will  — 

I.  If  I  cannot  interrupt  I  will  not  listen  at  all. 

H.  What  were  you  about  to  remark  ? 

I.  I  was  about  to  remark,  and  will  now  remark, 
that  in  thy  injunction  anent  the  good  dinner  thou 
savorest  not  the  things  that  be  of  God,  but  those 


196  SUMMER  REST. 

that  be  of  men.  We  Congregationalists  pride  our 
selves  in  following  hard  after  the  Apostles  in  our 
church  organization  and  administration,  but  it 
seems  to  me  the  modern  ordination  dinner  is  any 
thing  but  Apostolic.  The  ordinations  of  the  New 
Testament  were  with  fasting  as  well  as  praying 
and  laying  on  of  hands. 

H.  I  don't  suppose  they  were  all  day  about  it ; 
but  that  is  a  point  you  must  settle  with  the  min 
isters,  while  I  get  on  to  the  negative  side,  and  do 
not  approve  of  their  putting  the  candidate  through 
a  course  of  catechism  preliminary  to  his  ordina 
tion. 

I.  But  they  must  find  out  what  a  man  believes. 
They  could  not  give  him  their  sanction  without 
knowing  something  about  him. 

H.  He  can  write  on  a  sheet  of  paper  a  better  ac 
count  of  himself  than  three  hours  of  clerical  ques 
tioning  will  elicit  from  him.  Or  a  statement  of 
belief  might  be  prepared  for  such  occasions,  em 
bracing  those  points  whereon  it  is  considered  req 
uisite  that  Orthodox  clergymen  should  agree.  If 
he  can  sign  it,  they  will  ordain  him  at  once ;  if  he 
cannot,  he  will  know  it  beforehand,  and  not  apply 
for  ordination.  Or  his  Seminary  diploma  may  be 
taken  as  evidence.  A  vast  amount  of  time  would 
be  saved,  and  not  a  little  rambling  talk  that 
amounts  to  nothing,  and  does  not  tend  to  increase 
respect  for  council  or  candidate  in  the  minds  of  in 
telligent  persons.  At  the  councils  which  I  have  at- 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  197 

tended  both  questions  and  answers  have  been  often 
unsatisfactory.  The  members  of  the  council  walk 
in  a  vain  show.  There  is  little  real  examination. 
Objections  are  put  and  answered,  investigations 
supposed  to  be  made  into  creeds  ;  if  the  candidate 
loses  himself  in  the  maze  now  and  then,  the  good- 
natured  questioner  gives  him  a  leading  question 
and  brings  him  out  tenderly.  But  if  you  are  going 
to  lead  him  out,  why  put  him  in  ?  The  trial  is 
supposed  to  be  in  seeing  whether  he  can  get  out  of 
himself.  Not  unfrequently  questions  are  "of  such 
a  nature  that  they  might  puzzle  a  wiser  and  older 
brain  than  any  divinity  student  can  be  expected  to 
have.  As  to  the  objections,  there  is  little  learned 
by  the  answering  of  infidel  objections  put  by  be 
lievers,  or  Universalist  objections  put  by  Ortho 
dox.  They  are  not  the  things  he  will  be  likely  to 
meet  in  the  world,  nor  will  any  such  contests 
strengthen  him  for  real  encounters.  As  a  general 
thing,  there  is  no  faith  to  be  put  in  one  man's  rep 
resentation  of  another  man's  belief.  It  is  the 
easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  overthrow  the  argu 
ment  of  your  foe  when  it  is  presented  by  your 
friend,  to  win  battles  in  your  chimney-corner.  If 
you  really  wish  to  see  what  a  man  can  do  in  the 
way  of  polemics,  bring  up  your  Universalists  and 
your  Unitarians  and  your  Roman  Catholics  in  the 
flesh  and  set  them  on  him. 

I.  Of  course  a  young  man  fresh  from   school 
could  not  stand  such  an  onslaught  as  that,  however 


198  SUMMER  REST. 

able  he  is  or  may  become.  Besides,  it  is  not  prac 
ticable.  It  would  be  just  an  interminable  wrangle. 

H.  I  do  not  suppose  the  young  man  could  stand 
the  onslaught.  But  if  he  cannot  do  it,  it  is  mis 
chievous  to  make  him  believe  that  he  has  done 
it.  Let  us  have  a  fair  fight  or  peace,  but  no  sham 
fight.  The  times  are  too  warlike  for  such  flum 
mery.  If  there  is  to  be  a  public  examination  of 
the  candidate,  it  should  be  such  as  we  would  not 
be  ashamed  of  before  the  most  bitter  opponent  of 
revealed  religion  or  of  our  denomination.  If  ex 
aminations  must  continue  as  they  are,  they  should 
be  held  with  closed  doors.  Every  person  who  is 
accustomed  to  use  his  own  mind  or  his  eyes  and 
ears,  instead  of  other  people's,  should  be  rigor 
ously  excluded.  If  the  powers  that  be  ordained 
of  councils  are  to  hold  sway  over  us,  they  must 
not  admit  us  behind  the  curtain  too  freely.  What 
is  that  sticking  out  from  under  your  hat  ? 

I.  Nothing.  (Moving  the  hat  a  little  farther 
along  on  the  grass.) 

H.  I  am  glad  to  hear  it.  I  thought  it  looked 
like  a  manuscript. 

J.  O  no.     It  is  only  an  ox-eye  daisy. 

H.  I  could  swear  it  had  black  stamens. 

I.  Not  at  all.  It  was  the  reflection  of  your 
eyes. 

H.  That  is  a  comforting  assurance.  I  only  hope 
you  will  stand  by  it.  Am  I  told  that  mine  are 
ox-eyes  ? 


GTLFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  199 

I.  If  they  were  they  would  be  a  thing  of  beauty 
as  well  as  what  they  already  are  to  me,  a  joy  for 
ever.  You  know  the  venerable  ox-eyed  Juno. 
By  the  way,  Derby's  Homer  puts  it  "  stag-eyed," 
which  is  not  half  so  nice,  somehow. 

H.  Derby's  Homer  is  Homer  with  the  poetry 
left  out.  Is  there  anything  else  before  this  coun 
cil  ?  If  not,  we  had  better  adjourn  before  you  bring 
out  your  axe. 

I.  What  axe? 

H.  The  axe  you  have  to  grind  to  pay  for  all 
your  blandishments. 

I.  Why  yes,  don't  think  of  breaking  up  yet! 
It  is  my  turn  now.  I  have  not  answered  your 
question  about  the  Sabbath-breakers. 

H.  Fire  away  then. 

I.  The  gentleman  wishes  to  know  why,  if  there 
be  no  such  thing  as  Sabbath-breaking,  so  many 
criminals  consider  Sabbath-breaking  their  first  step 
towards  ruin.  Permit  me  to  say,  with  all  respect 
to  the  honorable  gentleman,  that  any  one,  who 
had  as  much  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  the  human 
mind  as  might  be  looked  for  in  the  brains  of  a 
mouse  which  had  nibbled  three  nights  at  a  diction 
ary,  would  not  need  to  ask  such  a  question.  If 
you  train  a  child  to  believe  that  the  Divine  word 
commands  him  to  wear  black  shoe-strings,  and 
that  the  Divine  displeasure,  and  all  sorts  of  moral 
and  worldly  evil,  will  follow  the  adoption  of  red ; 
if  you  drill  it  into  him,  from  his  childhood  to  his 


200  SUMMER  REST. 

youth,  support  your  doctrine  by  conclusive  proof- 
texts,  such  as  "  Look  not  upon  the  wine  when  it 
is  red,"  "I  am  black  but  comely,"  "Wherefore 
art  thou  red  in  thine  apparel  ?  "  you  may  expect 
to  hear  him,  as  he  is  about  to  expire  on  the  gal 
lows,  trace  back  his  career  of  crime,  step  by  step, 
to  the  fatal  day  when,  allured  by  fashion  and  evil 
companions,  he  cast  aside  the  moral  shoe-strings 
in  which  he  had  been  reared,  and  indulged  first 
for  an  hour  secretly,  then  for  a  day,  and  then 
openly  and  unblushingly,  month  after  month,  in 
the  abomination  of  red  cord  and  tassels.  And 
the  one  case  will  be  just  as  conclusive  as  the  other. 
Shame  and  blame  on  you  who  have  hedged  him 
around  with  barriers  which  God  never  set. 

H.  I  trust  that  is  a  rhetorical,  not  a  logical 
"you." 

/.  It  is  a  sort  of  general  apostrophe  to  the 
enemy.  But  look  at  the  Quakers. 

H.  Friends  you  mean.  "  Quakers  "  is  a  nick 
name,  and  uncourteous. 

I.  The  King  of  the  Quakers  told  me,  he  would 
just  as  soon  be  called  a  Quaker  as  a  Friend. 
Puritan  is  a  nickname,  and  we  glory  in  it.  Meth 
odist  is  a  nickname.  Christian  is  most  likely  a 
nickname.  Quaker  I  like  best,  therefore,  as  I 
was  saying,  look  at  the  Quakers.  They  hold  all 
days  in  equal  honor.  Is  it  a  cause  of  immorality? 
Do  they  fill  the  jails  and  build  the  gallows  ?  Look 
at  the  Germans. 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  201 

If.  Most  people  would  advise  you  to  look  the 
other  way. 

I.  There  is  no  need.  Germany  is  not  indeed 
an  example  of  a  warm-hearted  Christian  nation. 
But  not  only  is  there  an  adequate  cause  for  her 
scepticism  and  indifference,  entirely  apart  from  her 
opinions  concerning  Sunday,  but  her  most  active 
and  spiritual  Christians  share  these  opinions,  show 
ing  that  it  is  not  her  Sunday  views  which  pro 
duce  the  deadening  effects.  I  have  never  heard, 
that  those  who  are  must  desirous  of  a  reformation 
wish  to  introduce  the  English  Sabbath  into  the 
Fatherland. 

If.  I  was  talking  with  Agincourt  the  other  day. 
He  was  somewhat  stirred  by  the  Sunday  habits 
of  the  Germans  whom  he  saw  in  California. 
But  he  was  compelled  to  admit  that  they  were 
honest,  sober,  and  as  I  inferred  generally  well- 
behaved. 

I.  Yes,  and  do  you  not  remember  Charles 
Loring  Brace,  in  "  Home-Life  in  Germany,"  says 
the  appearance  of  Hamburg  at  night  is  a  wonder 
ful  contrast  to  the  hideous  rioting  and  drunken 
ness  of  Glasgow  and  Edinburgh.  And  how 
beautiful  is  the  family  life  that  he  saw,  —  the 
mutual  forbearance  of  all,  —  the  simple,  cordial 
ways,  the  free  respect  for  the  old  father,  the  care 
for  the  amusements  and  plays,  the  sunny,  confid 
ing  life  through  the  whole  family.  And  how  polite 
are  all  classes,  and  how  capable  of  enjoyment,  O, 
9* 


202  SUMMER  REST. 

we  Pharisees  plume  ourselves  on  our  righteousness, 
but  in  some  of  the  best  lessons  of  life  we  might 
go  to  school  to  these  Germans. 

H.  About  the  best  thing  which  I  remember  in 
that  book  was  what  one  of  their  clergymen,  I 
think  it  was,  told  Mr.  Brace  ;  that,  as  one  good 
result  of  German  indifference,  there  was  no  rest 
ing  in  forms  as  in  England.  There  were  plenty 
of  Sadducees  in  Protestant  Germany,  but  very 
few  Pharisees.  Mr.  Brace  himself  could  see  that 
Rationalism  had  done  away  to  a  great  extent  with 
intellectual  narrowness  in  theology.  No  one  dared 
to  come  out  with  a  crude  opinion.  He  knew  if  it 
could  not  stand  the  boldest  attacks,  it  must  go 
down,  whatever  of  authority  was  behind  it.  The 
consequence  was,  real  liberality  combined  with 
real  piety,  breadth  of  view  as  well  as  depth  of 
feeling. 

I.  You  see,  one  of  our  Pharisaisms  is  to  call 
every  way  of  celebrating  Sunday  except  our  own 
immoral.  Then  of  course,  it  is  easy  enough  to 
convict  a  whole  nation  of  immorality  or  even  a 
whole  continent.  But  there  are  plenty  of  sins 
to  ravage  on  the  soul,  without  setting  up  some  of 
our  own  invention.  When  I  see  and  hear  of  the 
boating  and  driving,  and  what  is  called  the  Sab 
bath-breaking,  it  gives  me  pain,  for  I  feel  sure 
that  it  is  done  against  conscience,  and  will  inflict 
harm  upon  the  persons  who  indulge  in  it.  But 
if  I  could  know  that  a  young  man  was  a  Chris- 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  203 

tian,  a  lover  and  follower  of  Christ,  I  should 
not  feel  any  more  disturbed  to  know  that  he 
was  taking  a  drive  on  a  Sunday  evening,  than 
that  he  was  eating  his  breakfast  Sunday  morn 
ing.  Only  give  Christ  the  first  place  in  the 
heart,  not  by  word  or  profession,  but  in  fact,  and 
then  let  every  man  do  what  he  is  fully  persuaded 
in  his  own  mind  will  most  conduce  to  the  well- 
being  of  himself  and  of  society.  The  true  social 
rule  is,  to  do  nothing  which  will  tend  to  de 
prive  other  people  of  their  rest-day,  by  making 
them  work,  or  deprive  them  of  their  worship-day, 
by  disturbing  them  with  noise.  On  this  ground 
I  should  object  to  all  public  concerts,  to  the 
opening  of  reading-rooms  and  museums,  to  elabo 
rate  Sunday  dinners,  and  especially  dinner-parties, 
to  Sunday  newspapers,  and  horse-cars  or  steam- 
cars  — 

H.  To  churches  and  Sunday  schools. 

I.  What? 

H.  You  cannot  have  church-services  and  Sun 
day  schools  without  a  good  deal  of  work  from 
minister,  choir,  sexton,  teachers. 

J.  There  does  seem  to  be  a  little  hitch  here ; 
but  the  churches  must  be  open,  logic  or  no  logic. 
If  I  had  thought  of  it  myself,  I  could  have  man 
aged  it,  I  dare  say,  but  I  never  can  think  when 
anything  is  sprung  upon  me.  Come  now,  help 
me  out  of  this,  you  ordaining  Council,  you. 

H.  You  have  only  to  bring  in  another  principle, 


204  SUMMER   REST. 

which  is  constantly  at  work,  that  of  making  a  small 
outlay  for  a  large  income  ;  of  using  the  inconven 
ience  of  the  few  for  the  convenience  of  the  many. 
The  closest  adherent  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath  admits 
this.  He  finds  no  fault  with  his  minister  for  work 
ing  harder  on  that  day  than  on  any  other  of  the 
seven.  He  considers  that  the  good  accruing  to 
the  congregation  balances  the  evil  accruing  to  the 
minister. 

I.  But  the  minister  ought  to  take  another  day 
for  his  rest-day. 

H.  Certainly.  Many  of  them  do.  So  it  should 
be  with  all.  If  the  opening  of  a  reading-room  is 
discovered  to  be  serviceable  to  the  morality,  and 
for  general  benefit  of  a  community,  some  arrange 
ment  should  be  made  to  give  the  person  who  is 
employed  in  it  on  that  day  opportunity  to  take 
another  day  for  rest.  If  the  running  of  the  horse- 
cars  on  Sunday  is  decided  to  be  of  more  good 
to  the  community  than  of  harm  to  the  company, 
the  harm  can  be  reduced  to  its  minimum  by  em 
ploying  extra  hands  for  the  extra  day,  or  by 
having  the  different  drivers  take  turns  in  Sunday 
labor. 

I.  Have  you  seen  that  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
excitement  in  Philadelphia  about  running  the 
horse-cars  on  Sunday? 

H.  I  have  seen  that  some  of  the  clergymen  and 
other  citizens  have  taken  very  active  measures 
against  it,  in  the  way  I  believe  of  petition  and 


GILFILLAWS  SABBATH.  205 

public  meetings  for  protest.  I  have  also  seen 
something  else  going  on  in  Philadelphia.  There 
were  statements  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  months 
ago,  some  of  which  were  afterwards  copied  into 
the  Boston  Congregationalist.  I  believe  I  have 
the  slip  in  my  pocket  now  if  I  have  not  lost  it. 
Yes,  here  it  is.  Now  listen  to  this :  "  One  widow 
taking  out  shirts  at  the  arsenal,  earned  two  dollars 
and  forty  cents  in  two  weeks,  but  was  denied  per 
mission  to  take  them  in  when  done,  though  ur 
gently  needing  her  pay,  being  told  that  she  would 

be  making  too  much  money A  third,  whose 

husband  was  then  in  the  army,  found  the  price 
of  infantry  pantaloons  reduced  from  forty-two  to 
twenty-seven  cents,  —  reduced  by  the  government 
itself,  —  but  she  made  eight  pair  a  week,  took  care 
of  five  children,  and  was  always  on  the  verge  of 
starvation.  She  declared  that,  if  it  were  not  for 
her  children,  she  would  gladly  lie  down  and  die. 
A  fourth  worked  for  contractors  on  overalls,  at  five 
cents  a  pair !  Having  the  aid  of  a  sewing-machine, 
she  made  six  pair  daily,  but  was  the  object  of  in 
sult  and  abuse  from  her  employer An  aged 

woman  worked  on  tents,  making  in  each  tent  forty- 
six  button-holes,  sewing  on  forty -six  buttons,  then 
buttoning  them  together,  then  making  twenty  eye 
let  holes,  —  all  for  sixteen  cents.  After  working 
the  whole  day  without  tasting  food,  she  took  in  her 
work  just  five  minutes  after  the  hour  for  receiving 
and  paying  for  the  week's  labor She  asked 


206  SUMMER  REST. 

them  to  pay  her  for  what  she  had  just  delivered, 
but  was  refused.  She  told  them  she  was  without 
a  cent,  and  that  if  forced  to  wait  till  another  pay 
day,  she  must  starve.  The  reply  was,  '  Starve  and 
be  d — d!  That  is  none  of  my  business.  We  have 
our  rules,  and  shall  not  break  them  for  any  — .'  A 
tailor  gave  to  another  sewing-woman  a  lot  of  pan 
taloons  to  make  up.  The  cloth  being  rotten,  the 
stitches  of  one  pair  tore  out,  but  by  exercising 
great  care  she  succeeded  in  getting  the  others 
made  up.  When  she  took  them  in,  he  accused 
her  of  having  ruined  them,  and  refused  to  pay 
her  anything.  She  threatened  suit,  whereupon 
he  told  her  to  '  sue  and  be  d — d,'  and  finally  of 
fered  a  shilling  a  pair,  which  her  necessities  forced 
her  to  accept." 

"  One  public  praying  man  paid  less  than  any 
other  contractor,  and  frequently  allowed  his  hands 
to  go  unpaid  for  two  or  three  weeks  together.  An 
other  would  give  only  a  dollar  for  making  thirteen 
shirts  and  drawers,  of  which  a  woman  could  finish 

but  three  in  a  day What  but  fallen  women 

must  some  of  the  subjects  of  such  atrocious  treat 
ment  become  !  It  was  ascertained  from  a  letter 
sent  by  one  of  this  class,,  that  she  had  given  way 
under  the  pressure  of  starvation.  She  said :  '  I 
was  once  an  innocent  girl,  the  daughter  of  a  cler 
gyman.  Left  an  orphan  at  an  early  age,  I  tried 
hard  to  make  a  living,  but  unable  to  endure  the 
hard  labor,  and  live  upon  the  poor  pay  I  received, 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  207 

I  fell  into  sin.  Tell  your  public  that  thousands 
like  me  have  been  driven  by  want  to  crime.'  Yet 
the  men  who  thus  drove  virtuous  women  to  de 
spair  were  amassing  large  fortunes.  Their  names 
appeared  in  the  newspapers  as  liberal  contribu 
tors  to  every  public  charity  that  was  started, — 
to  sanitary  fairs,  to  women' s-aid  societies,  to  the 
sick  and  wounded  soldiers,  to  everything  that 
would  be  likely  to  bring  their  names  into  print. 
They  figured  as  respectable  and  spirited  citizens. 

Of  all  men  they  were  supremely  loyal Some 

of  them  were  church-members,  famous  as  class- 
leaders  and  exhorters,  powerful  in  prayer,  espe 
cially  when  made  in  public." 

These  things  have  been  published  for  months ; 
but  if  there  has  been  any  denial  of  their  truth  or 
any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Church  to  clear  it 
self  of  this  scandal  before  the  world,  I  have  not 
seen  it.  But  if  I  were  an  unbeliever  in  Christian 
ity,  I  think  I  should  be  much  more  likely  to  be 
won  over  to  it  by  seeing  the  clergymen  and  church 
men  of  Philadelphia  ejecting  from  their  commun 
ion  the  men  who  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor  and 
disclaiming  all  complicity  with  the  devils  of  extor 
tion  and  greed,  than  I  should  by  seeing  them  run 
a  muck  against  the  horse-cars.  Monday  is  far 
more  wickedly  profaned  by  oppression  than  Sun 
day  by  a  six-penny  ride.  One  is  moved  also  to 
inquire  whether  the  Christian  population  of  Phila 
delphia  has  ever  taken  any  steps  towards  putting 


208  SUMMER  REST. 

a  stop  to  the  running  of  private  carriages  on  Sun 
day.  Or  is  there  to  be  class  legislation  in  the  city 
of  Brotherly  Love  ?  Are  rich  people  to  be  allowed 
to  drive  in  their  own  coaches  while  poor  people 
are  not  to  be  allowed  the  use  of  hired  cars  ? 

I.  Take  care  !  The  papers  say  a  man  was  ex 
pelled  from  one  of  these  Philadelphia  meetings  for 
charging  some  of  the  clergy  with  the  inconsistency 
of  riding  to  and  from  church  in  their  private  car 
riages,  the  driver  being  left  out  doors  through 
service. 

H.  Served  him  right.  It  was  all  the  answer 
they  could  make.  When  you  know  a  man  is  more 
than  your  match,  the  demands  of  our  enlightened 
and  Christian  civilization  require  that  you  say  your 
own  say  and  then  turn  your  opponent  out  doors. 
We  have  not  only  high  clerical  but  political  pre 
cedent  for  such  a  procedure. 

I.  But  you  would  not  have  transportation  going 
on  through  Sunday  as  on  other  days  ? 

H.  No.  I  would  have  the  business  of  the 
world  come  to  a  stop  as  far  as  possible,  and  the 
more  perfect  the  pause  the  better;  but  an  ab 
solute  stop  is  not  possible.  The  business  relations 
of  life  cannot  safely  or  wisely  be  meddled  with  by 
those  who  know  nothing  about  them.  • 

L  But  do  not  let  people  be  eaten  up  alive  by 
their  business  relations.  "  The  world  is  too  much 
with  us."  I  am  rather  suspicious  of  "  business  re 
lations."  They  cover  a  multitude  of  sins. 


GILFILLAWS  SABBATH.  209 

H.  You  would  fare  ill  without  them.  Let 
Sunday  work  be  spun  down  to  the  very  finest 
thread  that  will  keep  Saturday  and  Monday  to 
gether,  but  let  no  one  insist  on  a  rupture  that  shall 
make  more  work  on  Monday  in  uniting  the  broken 
ends  than  would  have  been  caused  by  no  change 
at  all.  I  would  have  the  current  of  life  sweep  into 
another  channel  as  far  as  may  be.  The  lawyer 
should  not  look  at  his  briefs,  nor  the  merchant  at 
his  accounts,  nor  the  scientific  man  at  his  science, 
nor  the  writer  at  his  book.  The  school-teacher 
and  pupil  should  not  go  into  Sunday  school,  and 
the  cook  should  have  no  dinner  to  get.  I  would 
send  the  student  into  the  field,  and  the  farmer  to 
his  books,  not,  however,  forsaking  the  assembling 
of  themselves  together.  So  business  should  loose 
its  grasp  of  a  man's  soul,  and  give  him  a  chance  to 
look  up  and  see  God.  Anything  like  fastening 
upon  Sunday  the  ordinary  routine  of  week-day 
toil  I  should  consider  with  the  utmost  grief  as  an 
irreparable  calamity.  I  do  not  think  it  can  ever 
be  done,  but  even  the  attempt  would  be  disas 
trous. 

I.  Now  I  have  something  to  say  on  that  point 
very  appropriate,  if  you  would  but  listen  to  me. 
Here  is  a  little  paper  — 

H.  O,  the  axe-head  is  peeping  out,  is  it  ? 

I.  Well,  you  can  see  for  yourself  that  we  are 
led  directly  up  to  it  by  our  subject.  I  am  not 
wantonly  trifling  with  your  domestic  happiness. 


210  SUMMER  REST. 

H.  Is  it  something  funny  ? 

I.  Not  exactly  funny,  —  why  of  course  not!  but 
of  the  first  importance. 

H.  Then  I  won't  listen  to  it.  (Swinging  off 
up  the  orchard.) 

/.  Why !  Hali (gathering  up  my  rejected 

addresses  and  following  him). 

H.  First,  because  it  is  not  funny,  and  second, 
because  it  is  important.  I  will  none  of  it. 

JT.  Perhaps  to-morrow  then. 

H.  Or  week  after  next. 

I.  Week  after  next  never  comes. 

H.  It  might  do  a  worse  thing. 

I.  If  you  would  only  be  reasonable  and  promise 
to  read  it  to-morrow,  I  would  let  you  off  to-day. 

H.  To-morrow  is  quite  out  of  the  question.  I 
have  pressing  engagements  for  to-morrow.  Notice 
has  been  served  on  me,  that  the  meal-chest  is 
empty,  and  to-morrow  I  go  to  mill. 

I.  It  will  not  take  you  all  day  just  to  go  to  mill. 
Four  hours  at  furthest. 

H.  And  four  more  very  likely  to  wait  for  the 
grist.  I  go  in  for  the  eight  hour  movement,  and 
will  not  work  over  time. 

/.  So  do  I  go  in  for  it,  as  you  will  see  ;  and  I 
hereby  invite  myself  to  go  to  mill  with  you,  — 
"  Thank  you,  I  shall  be  very  happy  to  accept  the 
invitation,"  —  and  while  we  are  waiting,  you  can 
improve  the  shining  hours  by  reading  this  pro 
found  and  truly  admirably  essay. 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  211 

So  the  next  day  the  wagon  was  brought  out,  — 
none  of  your  airy,  fairy  hints  of  wagons,  with  noth 
ing  really  certain  about  them  except  the  wheels ; 
but  a  good  solid  wagon  with  a  palpable  body,  sides  a 
foot  and  a  half  high,  made  in  panels,  painted  green 
outside  and  drab  within,  wheels  with  spokes  in 
them  and  not  spindles,  a  back  seat  and  a  front  seat, 
movable  and  removable  at  pleasure,  a  buffalo-robe 
to  sit  on,  and  an  honest,  unambitious  nag  to  draw 
you,  —  that  is  what  I  call  a  wagon.  On  the  present 
occasion  the  front  seat  was  taken  out,  and  the  back 
seat  pushed  forward  for  the  better  bestowing  of  the 
freight.  With  a  lively  consciousness  that  possession 
is  nine  points  of  the  law,  I  pre-empted,  this  seat 
as  soon  as  the  horse  was  harnessed,  and  so  antici 
pated  any  objections  that  might  be  raised  to  my 
part  of  the  journey  grounded  on  the  character  or 
bulk  of  the  load.  The  wagon  is  backed  up  to  the 
gate,  and  the  tail-board  let  down.  The  load  is 
brought  out  on  the  shoulders  of  a  stalwart  Atlas, — 
bushel-bags  of  tow  cloth,  puffed  out  with  shelled 
corn  on  its  winding  way  to  become  Johnny-cakes, 
brown-bread  cakes,  and  Indian  puddings,  or,  with 
rye,  which  is  equally  sure  to  suffer  a  fire-change 
into  drop-cakes,  muffins,  and  other  things  rich 
and  strange,  —  gathered  up  at  one  end  and  bound 
with  a  strong  cord,  — just  such  sacks,  for  aught 
I  know,  as  Joseph's  brethren  carried  down  into 
Egypt,  and  with  plenty  of  room  in  every  sack's 
mouth  for  a  silver  cup  and  corn-money ;  —  but 


212  SUMMER  REST. 

never  in  my  experience  was  cup  or  corn-money 
found  there.  These  bags  Atlas  dumps  down  on 
the  wagon-floor,  causing  the  ancient  vehicle  to 
groan  and  tremble  through  all  its  frame,  and  rais 
ing  little  puffs  of  flour-dust  in  the  air,  remnants  of 
many  a  vanished  grist.  Then  come  baskets  of 
corn  on  the  cob,  to  which  I  offer  constitutional 
objections ;  but  Halicarnassus  maintains  that  it  is 
the  cream  of  classic  elegance,  —  the  very  style 
of  Oriental  splendor  in  which  Dido  entertained 
jEneas,  — 

"  Cereremque  canistris 
Expediunt,"  — 

a  theory  which  I  vehemently  demolish,  having  no 
manner  of  doubt  that  her  "  Cereremque  canis 
tris  "  was  frosted  fruit-cake  in  silver  baskets,  as 
becomes  a  queen  ;  and  while  the  dispute  is  yet 
hot  between  us  the  final  touches  are  given,  the 
tail-board  is  screwed  up,  Rosinante  stretches  her 
old  bones,  the  harness  rattles,  the  wheels  revolve, 
and  we  lumber  down  the  lane  dew-besprent  in  the 
early  morning.  How  bright  the  sky,  how  cool  the 
air,  how  fresh  the  smells !  The  rough  gates  sag 
ging  slowly  back,  grating  harsh  thunder,  seem  to 
be  the  ever-during  gates  on  golden  hinges  turning. 
Sedately  we  wind  through  the  open  pasture,  linger 
ing  long  among  the  broad  tracts  of  sweet  fern,  past 
the  black,  sullen  pool  in  the  hollow,  —  sullen 
to  me,  but  most  winsome  to  the  panting  cows, 
when  the  sun  waxes  hot  and  they  saunter  down 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  213 

to  stand  knee-deep  in  the  muddy  coolness  and 
while  away  the  noontide  with  lashing  their  tails. 
And  the  stagnant  pond  will  by  and  by  bloom 
out  with  a  brilliant  beauty  which  no  garden  of 
Istamboul  can  surpass.  Up  from  its  black  bed 
will  leap  an  army  of  lilies,  fair  as  the  sun,  clear 
as  the  moon,  all  spotless  of  the  slime  from  which 
they  sprung,  and  breathing  only  sweetest  odors. 
And  on  past  the  berberry  hedge,  with  its  sharp- 
set  acid  leaves  dear  to  child-tongues,  and  beautiful 
now  with  clusters  of  graceful,  drooping  yellow 
flowers,  to  be  still  more  beautiful  when  the  deep 
ening  summer  and  the  glowing  autumn  shall  fes 
toon  them  with  crimson  fruit.  Berberry,  —  the 
children  will  look  askance  at  the  word,  —  but  a 
5arberry-bush  they  know  full  well ;  and  joining- 
hands  in  a  circle  they  dance  wildly  around,  sing 
ing  at  the  top  of  their  voices,  — 

"  As  we  go  round  the  barberry-bush, 
The  barberry,  barberry,  barberry-bush, 
As  we  go  round  the  barberry-bush 

So  early  every  morning. 
This  is  the  way  we  wash  our  elothes, 
We  wash,  we  wash,  wo  wash  our  clothes, 
This  is  the  way  we  wash  our  elothes 
So  early  every  morning." 

And  all  the  time  you  are  dancing  around  in  the 
circle  you  must  imitate  the  motion  of  washing, 
washing,  washing  clothes,  or  ironing,  ironing,  iron 
ing  clothes,  or  combing,  combing,  combing  hair, 
or  whatever  else  you  take  it  into  your  head  to 


214  SUMMER  REST. 

do  so  early  every  morning,  and  woe  to  him  who 
first  loses  breath.  What  fun  it  was !  And  now 
we  turn  an  acute  angle,  and  passing  through 
another  gate  are  in  the  swamp,  the  sunniest, 
most  un-dismal  swamp  that  ever  settled  on  its 
lees.  The  sweet,  dry,  aromatic  pasture  smells 
have  given  place  to  the  sweet,  damp,  thick  odors 
of  the  spongy  bog.  The  roadside  at  first  is  pink- 
studded  with  the  regular,  ornate  sheep-laurel. 
The  low  blueberry  and  huckleberry  bushes  give 
promise  of  future  feasts ;  and  now  the  road  nar 
rows,  and  is  shut  in  between  two  walls,  which, 
indeed,  are  quite  covered  up  and  lost  in  the  clasp 
of  wild  grape-vines,  and  clematis,  and  roses  just 
opening  to  the  sun.  A  narrow  road,  but  the 
swamp  begrudges  us  even  that,  and  presses  up 
closer  and  closer,  and  the  trees  reach  out  and  join 
hands  over  our  heads,  and  we  ride  through  a  green 
tunnel,  rose-bedecked,  —  a  green  bough  bolder 
than  the  rest,  now  and  then  dashing  the  dew 
slap !  in  our  faces,  and  splendid  rhodoras  swing 
ing  their  censers  afar,  unseen.  Long  delaying, 
we  come  at  last  upon  the  high  road,  and  "  vage  " 
through  the  village,  —  not  swiftly,  I  know,  but 
that  is  no  excuse  for  the  saucy  urchin,  lounging 
with  his  mates  under  the  churchyard  fence,  call 
ing  and  drawling,  "  Mister !  your  wheels  turn 
round!"  —  the  rambling,  straggling  village  over 
which  broods  the  quiet  of  a  perpetual  Sabbath. 
On  under  the  shadows  of  the  great  elms  and  out 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  215 

of  the  village  again  upon  the  broad  causeway  built 
across  the  meadows,  and  fringed  with  willows, 
winding  around  the  vine-clad  rocks  and  into  the 
woods  again,  —  a  charming  road  to  walk  in  alone, 
till  Satan  was  unloosed  in  these  later  days,  and 
peopled  its  dear  solitude  with  dread  phantoms. 
I  remember  the  last  time  I  ventured  there,  I  had 
just  left  the  village  out  of  sight,  and  passing  round 
a  bend  came  upon  some  cows  grazing  among  the 
bushes,  and  a  man,  half  hidden,  leaning  against 
a  pair  of  bars.  I  was  a  good  deal  afraid  of  the 
man  and  not  at  all  afraid  of  the  cows,  so  I  pre 
tended  to  be  very  much  afraid  of  the  cows  and 
utterly  trustful  towards  the  man.  "  These  cows 
won't  hurt  me,  will  they  ?  "  I  called  out,  with 
what  was  designed  to  be  a  most  winning  confi 
dence,  to  my  bandit,  shying  around  the  leader  of 
the  drove,  a  soft-eyed  creature  that  would  not 
have  harmed  a  fly.  I  think  the  wretch  saw 
through  the  flimsy  subterfuge,  for  surely  the  Evil 
One  sparkled  in  his  wicked  eyes  as  he  called  back 
sonorously,  "  No,  I  guess  not ;  that  one  next  you 
is  apt  to  hook,  but  I  guess  she  won't  as  long 's  I  'm 
round."  A  little  farther  on  a  cavalcade  of  team 
sters  came  up  with  their  great  square  loads  of 
English  hay,  and  I  felt  safe.  There  is  something 
intrinsically  honest  about  teamsters.  They  seem 
to  be  a  sort  of  country  police.  Whenever  they 
rumble  by  in  the  night  they  give  a  sense  of  se 
curity.  You  know  there  are  honest  men  stirring. 


216  SUMMER  REST. 

Is  your  barn  catching  fire?  Is  a  burglar  tam 
pering  with  your  locks  ?  A  teamster  comes  up 
and  gives  the  alarm,  and  the  fire  is  put  out  and 
the  burglar  cuts  across  lots.  For  we  get  but  a 
second-rate  order  of  burglar  in  the  country.  There 
is  nothing  to  attract  a  connoisseur.  He  must  be 
but  a  bungler  in  his  business  who  will  prowl 
around  o'  nights  for  the  mere  chance  of  stealing 
a  little  dirty  paper  currency,  mostly  counterfeit. 
I  remonstrated  once  with  a  woman  for  sleeping 
with  her  doors  unfastened.  "  If  any  burglar  has 
any  thought  of  making  us  a  visit,"  she  cried,  em 
phatically,  with  uplifted  hands,  "  all  I  ask  is  that 
he  will  come  and  take  one  look  at  the  silver,  just 
one.  He  will  never  come  again,  for  it  is  all  sham." 
I  was  counting  up  once,  with  another  friend,  the 
number  of  outside  doors  in  his  rambling  old  house. 
To  the  best  of  my  knowledge  and  belief  we  made 
out  fourteen.  "I  hope  you  fasten  them  all  at 
night,"  said  one.  "  O,  we  generally  fasten  some 
of  them,"  was  the  careless  reply,  —  "three  or  four, 
and  by  that  time  we  get  tired  of  it  and  let  the 
rest  go."  Which  is  very  bad  for  the  burglar.  Of 
course  no  respectable  member  of  the  profession 
would  care  to  open  a  front  door  and  walk  in  like 
a  Christian. 

After  the  teamsters  had  gone  by,  and  before  I 
was  well  out  of  the  wilderness,  two  men  appeared 
in  sight,  real  Italian  brigands,  with  stilettos  dancing 
in  their  eyes.  Up  they  came  to  me  as  soon  as 


GILFILLAN'S  SABBATH.  217 

they  saw  me,  and  one  of  them  held  out  his  hand. 
"  Would  you  be  pleased  to  accept  the  gift  of  a 
young  robin  that  I  found  on  the  ground  out  here," 
and  indeed  he  had  a  pitiful  little  bird  well  feathered, 
but  half  educated.  I  took  it  from  his  brown  Flor 
entine  hand,  thanked  him  with  voluble,  and  I 
trusted  disarming  gratitude,  and  walked  on  as  fast 
as  possible  till  I  had  reached  a  settled  country 
again,  when  I  placed  my  little  foundling  tenderly 
on  the  grass,  believing  that  Nature  could  take  care 
of  her  minors  better  than  I.  I  am  convinced  he 
was  no  robin  at  all,  but  a  partridge  or  a  quail,  for 
he  hopped  off  directly  in  the  best  of  spirits,  and  so 
did  I,  and  that  was  his  end  and  the  end  of  that 
walking. 

o 

And  now  with  many  a  crook  and  turn  the  mill 
is  gained,  the  bags  and  baskets  are  hauled  out  and 
deposited  in  the  mill  ;  we  watch  the  process  of 
grinding  so  long  as  it  amuses  us,  see  the  slow 
whirlpool  of  corn  slowly  sinking,  and  the  little  riv 
ulet  of  meal  trickling  into  the  waiting  trough,  and 

c3  O  &       ' 

learn  that  it  is  not  only  the  mills  of  the  gods,  but 
the  mills  of  men  also,  that 

"grind  slowly, 
But  they  grind  exceeding  small "  ; 

and  then  we  stroll  out  and  down  the  mill-stream, 
and  where  an  overhanging  tree  gives  pleasant 
shade,  and  green  turf  a  pleasant  seat,  and  tumbling 
rocks  in  the  mill  brook  a  pleasant  sound  of  gur 
gling  waters,  and  all  the  place  is  full  of  peace, 
10 


218  SUMMER  REST. 

we  dispose  our  luncheon  on  the  grass,  and  the 
huge  black  ants  gallop  in  and  get  their  share  of 
the  gingerbread ;  but  there  is  no  harm  done,  and 
we  eat  our  meat  with  gladness  and  singleness  of 
heart,  and  scatter  the  fragments  to  the  fishes,  and 
then  out  comes  the  inevitable  manuscript,  to  which 
my  friend  meekly  betakes  himself;  and  as  for  me, 
I  climb  upon  a  rnossy  rock  jutting  out  over  the 
water,  and  go  sailing  round  the  world. 

This  is  the  manuscript.  You  can  call  it  a  new 
chapter  if  you  like,  or  you  can  call  this  interlude 
a  chapter.  Strictly  speaking,  I  suppose  there 
ought  to  be  a  break-off  where  we  go  to  mill.  But 
arrange  it  any  way  you  choose  ;  and  if  you  think 
it  is  an  easy  matter  to  make  a  book,  and  have  all 
the  machinery  running  smoothly,  I  should  like  to 
have  you  try  it.  The  main  body  of  it  is  manage 
able  enough  :  it  is  the  joints  and  hinges  that  cost. 


THE    KINGDOM    COMING. 


i'F  one  looks  to  the  individual  for  proof 
of  the  power  of  Christianity,  he  will 
generally  look  in  vain.  Creeds  differ ; 
but  of  persons  from  the  same  rank  in 
life,  one  is,  on  the  whole,  apparently  about  as 
good  as  another.  If  we  are  virtuous  where  we 
are  not  tempted,  liberal  in  matters  concerning 
which  we  are  indifferent,  reticent  when  we  have 
nothing  to  say,  —  in  one  word,  pleasant  when  we 
are  pleased,  —  it  is  all  that  our  best  friends  have 
any  reason  to  expect  of  us.  What  religion  does 
for  a  man  may  be  great,  and  even  radical,  from  his 
near  point  of  view  ;  but  from  the  world's  position 
it  is  scarcely  visible,  and  is  often  wholly  lost  in 
the  more  palpable  influences  of  temperament  and 
circumstance.  But  when  we  look  at  society,  we 
can  see  that  some  silent  agency  is  at  work,  slowlv, 
but  surely,  attuning  our  life  to  finer  issues  than 
the  Golden  Ages  knew.  The  hidden  leaven  of 
Christianity  is  working  its  noiseless  way  through 
the  whole  lump.  Christendom  is  on  a  higher 


220  SUMMER  REST. 

plane  than  Pagandom,  and  is  still  ascending.  In 
the  stress  of  daily  life,  we  are  sometimes  tempted 
to  lose  heart,  and  cry,  "  Who  shall  show  us  any 
good  for  all  this  toil  and  watch  and  struggle  ? " 
but  in  calmer  moments,  looking  back  over  the 
Difficult  Hills,  we  cannot  fail  to  see  that  we  have 
gained  ground.  The  sacredness  of  humanity  is 
gradually  overtopping  the  prerogatives  of  class. 
More  and  more  clearly  man  asserts  himself,  the 
end  of  every  good,  the  standard  by  which  every 
change  is  to  be  judged.  With  many  an  ebb,  the 
tide  of  all  healthful  and  helpful  force  is  flooding 
our  associated  life;  and  the  brotherhood  of  the 
race  attests  itself  by  many  infallible  signs. 

But  they  are  no.t  always  nor  only  found  where 
they  are  sought.  Workmanship  does  not  show 
to  the  best  advantage  in  workshops.  The  din 
and  whirl  of  machinery  confuse  us.  We  need 
to  see  the  wonderful  engine  in  actual  operation, 
the  beautiful  ornament  fitly  placed,  before  we  can 
decide  finally  upon  its  character.  The  churches 
have  been  the  workshops  of  Christianity.  There 
it  has  been  received,  fused,  hammered,  polished, 
fashioned  for  all  human  needs ;  but  nothing  less 
than  the  whole  world  is  the  true  theatre  of  its 
activity.  Not  what  it  has  done  for  the  Church, 
but  what  it  has  done,  is  doing,  and  purposes  to 
do  for  humanity,  is  the  measure  of  its  merit. 
Not  upon  the  mitre  of  the  priest,  but  upon  the 
bells  of  the  horses,  is  the  millennial  day  to  see 
inscribed  "  Holiness  unto  the  Lord  !  " 


THE  KINGDOM 'COMING.  221 

Since,  then,  the  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not 
with  observation,  we  need  not  look  for  fearful 
sights  and  great  signs  in  the  heavens.  They  are 
but  false  prophets  who  cry,  "  Lo,  here  !  "  or  "  Lo, 
there !  "  when  the  still,  small  voice  is  whispering 
all  the  while,  "  The  kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you."  Yes,  within  this  framework  of  society, 
in  the  midst  of  this  busy,  trivial  daily  life,  which 
seems  so  full  of  small  cares  and  selfish  seeking, 
the  Divine  Spirit  lives  and  works,  and  will  yet 
raise  it  to  the  heights  of  heavenly  fellowship. 
It  breathes  in  the  thousand  methods  devised  by 
ingenuity  to  lighten  the  burdens  of  labor,  by 
benevolence  to  soothe  away  the  bitterness  of  sor 
row,  by  taste  to  beautify  the  homes  of  poverty. 
The  little  photograph  leaves  that  flutter  down 
into  every  household  in  the  land  are  a  great  cloud 
of  witnesses  showing  us  that  science  is  but  the 
handmaid  of  God,  whose  service  is  to  bear  to  all 
the  blessings  once  reserved  for  a  class.  In  the 
old  time  it  was  only  the  few  who  could  fix  for 
future  years  the  beloved  features  of  a  friend. 
Now  every  fond  mother  may  transcribe  from 
birthday  to  birthday  the  face  of  her  darling,  to 
note  its  beautiful  changes,  and  every  lowliest  bride 
preserve  for  her  children's  children  the  bloom  of 
her  budding  youth. 

The  religious  world  has  hardly  learned  to  look 
for  its  millennium  in  the  horse-cars.  Neverthe 
less,  its  signs  are  there,  not  to  be  mistaken.  The 


222  SUMMER  REST. 

poor  sewing-woman  feels  their  presence,  if  she 
does  not  trace  them  to  their  source.  The  humble 
invalid  knows  them,  the  domestic  drudge,  the 
ailing,  puny  child,  the  swart  and  stalwart  work 
man,  who  ride  their  one  or  ten  miles  as  swiftly 
and  smoothly  as  a  millionnaire,  and  are  set  down 
at  shop  or  home,  or  among  the  freshness  and 
fragrance  and  song  of  the  beautiful  country.  The 
horse-car  is  the  poor  man's  private  carriage,  as 
carefully  fashioned  for  his  convenience,  as  tidy 
and  comfortable  and  comely,  as  if  it  cost  him 
hundreds  of  dollars,  instead  of  the  daily  sixpence. 
With  a  lifted  finger  he  commands  his  coachman, 
who  waits  promptly  on  his  wish.  Without  care, 
he  is  cared  for.  Without  capital,  he  "controls 
capital.  Free  society  does  more  for  him  than  the 
richest  despot  does  for  the  enslaved  people  whom 
the  instinct  of  self-preservation  forces  him  to  ca 
jole,  and  does  it,  too,  without  any  infringement 
upon  his  manhood.  We  call  it  energy,  enterprise, 
modern  conveniences.  It  in  the  millennium. 

But  these  matters  are  under  full  headway.  Sci 
ence  and  self-interest  have  taken  them  in  hand, 
arid  there  is  no  danger  that  they  will  not  be  car 
ried  out  to  their  farthest  beneficial  limits.  There 
is  another  measure  just  struggling  into  uncertain 
life,  —  a  measure  that  appeals  less  directly  to  self- 
advantage,  but  which  is  yet  so  fraught  with  good 
or  evil,  according  as  it  is  carefully  studied,  clearly 
understood,  and  wisely  managed,  or  suffered  to  fail 


THE  KIXGDOM  COMIXG.  2'2o 

through  inattention,  or  to  lead  an  irregular,  riotous 
life  for  a  tew  years  and  then  to  be  abated  as  a  nui 
sance,  that  we  cannot  safely  pass  it  by.  I  refer  to 
the  movement  making  itself  felt  in  various  ways, 
but  aiming  always  to  give  more  leisure  to  the  work 
ing  classes.  In  one  phase,  it  is  seeking  to  reduce 
the  hours  of  dailv  labor;  in  another,  it  is  trying  to 
close  the  shops  on  Saturday  afternoons.  In  both, 
it  is  a  step  so  radically  in  the  right  direction,  that 
we  can  but  give  thanks  for  the  opportunity,  while 
\ve  tremble  lest  it  may  not  be  firmly  and  wisely 
laid  hold  of.  In  planning  for  human  weal,  one 
is  met  on  every  side  by  the  want  of  leisure. 
Every  day  and  every  hour  comes  so  burdened 
with  its  material  necessities,  that  the  wants  of 
heart  and  mind  and  spirit  can  find  no  adequate 
gratification.  The  work  goes  on  satisfactorily ; 
wealth  accumulates  :  farms  are  well  tilled  :  mech 
anism  becomes  more  and  more  exquisite  :  but 
drunkenness,  prothVaev,  stupidity,  insanity,  and 
crime  undermine  the  man,  for  whom  all  these 
things  are  and  were  created,  and  to  whom  they 
ou^ht  to  bring  wisdom  and  power  and  peace. 
Thus  our  boasted  improvements  become  our  fol 
ly.  All  labor-savino-  machinery  that  does  not  save 
labor  in  the  souse  of  giving  leisure,  that  merely 
increases  the  quantity  or  improves  the  quality  of 
that  which  is  produced,  but  does  not  redound  to 
the  improvement  of  the  producer,  rather  con 
tributes  to  his  degradation,  has  somewhere  a  fatal 


224  SUMMER   REST. 

flaw.  Mind  may  legitimately  fashion  matter  into 
a  machine  ;  but  when  it  would  reduce  mind  also 
to  the  same  level,  it  steps  beyond  its  province. 
When  it  fails  to  continue  through  the  sphere  of 
mind  the  impulse  it  communicates  to  matter, — 
when  its  benefit  stops  with  fabric,  falling  short 
of  the  man  who  stands  over  it,  —  it  lags  behind  its 
duty,  and  is  so  far  unsuccessful. 

The  movement  for  diminishing  the  number  of 
laboring  hours  has  already  been  brought  before 
the  notice  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  and 
has  been  made  the  subject  of  careful  and  extensive 
inquiry.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  nothing  will  be 
left  undone  to  secure  a  just  and  righteous  decision. 
In  the  intelligence  and  virtue  of  its  workingmen 
lies  the  hope  of  the  Republic.  If  the  proposed 
change  shall  tend  to  promote  that  intelligence  and 
virtue,  it  will  be  the  part  of  true  patriotism  to 
effect  it.  Whether  this  particular  means  be  or  be 
not  the  wisest  for  the  end  in  view,  the  path  of  a 
higher  life  unquestionably  lies  in  this  direction. 
The  accomplishment  of  the  greatest  results  with 
the  least  outlay  of  time  and  toil  is  the  problem  in 
physical  science.  With  the  leisure  and  strength 
thus  redeemed  from  lower  needs,  to  build  up 
manhood  is  the  problem  of  moral  science. 

The  Saturday  half-holiday  is  less  an  affair  of 
law  and  legislature,  depends  more  upon  private 
men  and  women,  but  is  of  scarcely  less  importance. 
It  is  not  to  be  disguised  that  there  are  difficulties 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  225 

and  dangers  attending  the  plan.  It  is  as  yet  prob 
ably  regarded  only  as  an  experiment,  though  cer 
tain  classes  of  mercantile  men  have  been  trying  it 
for  years,  with  what  satisfaction  their  persistence 
in  it  indicates.  Undoubtedly  there  are  many 
young  men  who  misspend  their  holiday,  and  many 
more  who  do  not  know  what  to  do  with  it,  and 
who  will  finally  fall  into  mischief  through  sheer 
idleness.  The  hours  drag  so  heavily  that  they 
half  conclude  they  would  about  as  soon  be  at  work 
as  at  liberty  with  nothing  to  do.  Possibly  there 
are  more  who  abuse  their  holiday  than  use  it  ad 
vantageously.  But  just  as  far  as  this  evil  ex 
tends,  so  far  it  shows,  not  the  harm  of  leisure,  but 
the  sore  straits  we  have  been  brought  to  for  lack 
of  it.  There  is  no  sadder  result  of  the  disuse  of  a 
faculty  than  the  decadence  of  that  faculty.  Time 
is  the  essential  gift  of  God  to  man,  —  essential  not 
merely  to  providing  for  his  physical  wants,  but  to 
forming  his  character,  to  developing  his  powers, 
to  cultivating  his  taste,  to  elevating  his  life.  Is  it, 
then,  that  he  has  devoted  so  disproportionate  a 
share  of  this  time  to  one  of  its  uses,  and  that  not 
the  noblest,  that  he  has  lost  the  desire  and  the 
ability  to  devote  any  of  it  to  its  higher  uses? 
Have  young  men  given  themselves  to  buying  and 
selling  till  they  have  no  interest  in  Nature,  in 
books,  in  art,  in  manly  sport  and  exercise  ?  Then 
surely  it  behooves  us  at  once  to  change  all  this. 
No  man  can  have  a  well-balanced  mind,  a  good 
10*  o 


226  SUMMER  REST. 

judgment,  who  is  interested  in  nothing  but  his 
business.  If,  when  released  from  that  for  a  half- 
day  each  week,  he  is  listless,  aimless,  discontented, 
it  is  a  sure  sign  that  undue  devotion  to  it  has  in 
jured  his  powers,  and  is  making  havoc  of  his  finer 
organization. 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  many  of  our  young  men 
do  not  know  what  recreation  means.  They  con 
found  it  with  riot.  Fierce  driving,  hard  drinking, 
violence,  and  vice  they  understand ;  but  with  quiet, 
refining,  soothing,  and  strengthening  diversions 
they  have  small  acquaintance.  This  is  very  largely 
the  fault  of  the  community  in  which  they  live.  Do 
Christian  families  in  our  large  cities  feel  the  obli 
gations  which  they  are  under  towards  the  young 
men  who  come  among  them?  I  believe  that  a 
very  large  part  of  the  immorality,  the  irreligion, 
the  scepticism  and  crime  into  which  young  men 
fall  is  due  to  their  being  so  coldly  and  cruelly  let 
alone  by  Christian  families.  A  boy  comes  up 
from  the  country,  where  every  one  knows  him  and 
greets  him,  into  the  solitude  of  the  great  city.  He 
has  left  home  behind  him,  and  finds  no  new  home 
to  receive  him.  When  he  is  released  from  his 
work  in  shop  or  counting-room,  nothing  more  in 
viting  awaits  him  than  the  silent  room  in  the  dreary 
boarding-house.  He  misses  suddenly,  and  at  a 
most  sensitive  age,  the  graces  and  spontaneous 
kindnesses  of  home,  the  thousand  little  teasings 
and  pettings,  the  common  interests  and  tender- 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  227 

nesses,  that  he  never  thought  of  till  he  lost  them. 
He  is  surrounded  by  men  and  boys  all  bent  on 
their  several  ways.  He  must  have  amusement. 
It  is  as  necessary  to  him  as  daily  food.  What 
wonder,  then,  if  he  accepts  the  first  that  offers  ? 
And  if  Satan,  as  usual,  is  beforehand  with  his  in 
vitations,  what  shall  hinder  him  from  following 
Satan  ?  The  saloon,  warmed  and  lighted,  and 
enlivened  with  music  or  merry  talk,  is  more  at 
tractive  than  the  dingy,  solitary  room  ;  and  if  his 
feet  do  slip  now  and  then,  who  is  the  worse  for  it  ? 
He  will  never  write  it  home,  and  there  is  nobody 
in  the  city  who  will  discover  it ;  provided  he  is 
prompt  at  his  business,  no  one  will  meddle  with 
his  leisure  hours.  And  if  full-grown  men  are 
found  to  need  the  restraining  influences  of  wife  and 
child  and  neighbor,  and  to  plunge  into  brutality 
whenever  they  form  a  community  by  themselves, 
what  can  prevent  boys,  when  cast  adrift,  from 
drifting  into  sin  ?  Genius  is  supreme,  but  genius 
is  the  heritage  of  but  few ;  while  passion  and  ap 
petite,  love  of  society  and  amusement,  need  of 
watchfulness,  and  susceptibility  to  temptation,  be 
long  to  all.  "I  don't  like  wine,"  said  a  young 
man,  "  I  hate  the  taste  of  it ;  but  what  am  I  to 
do?  A  lot  of  fellows  carousing  is  n't  the  best  com 
pany  in  the  world ;  but  I  can't  stay  moping  in 
my  room  alone  all  the  time.  There  's  my  violin. 
Well,  I  took  it  out  once  or  twice,  but  it  was  no  go. 
When  I  could  go  into  the  parlor  after  supper,  and 


228  SUMMER  REST. 

mother  sewing  and  Bess  to  sing,  it  was  worth 
while ;  but  there  is  no  fun  in  fiddling  to  yourself 
by  wholesale.  Besides,  I  suppose  it  bores  the 
rest  to  have  a  fellow  sawing  away."  And  this 
was  a  fine,  healthy  young  man,  all  ready  to  be 
made  a  warm  friend,  a  patriotic  citizen,  a  pure 
and  happy  man,  and  just  as  ready  to  become  a 
reckless,  dissipated,  sorrow-bringing  failure.  And 
alas !  where  were  the  hands  that  should  have 
helped  him  ?  Alas !  alas !  what  are  the  hands 
that  will  not  be  backward  to  lay  hold  on  him? 

If  any  holiday  is  to  be  made  useful,  if  young 
men  are  to  be  saved  from  ruin,  saved  to  their 
mothers  and  sisters  and  wives,  saved  to  themselves, 
to  their  country,  and  to  God,  Christian  people 
must  bestir  themselves.  Young  Men's  Christian 
Associations  may  be  ever  so  efficient,  but  they 
cannot  do  everything.  The  work  that  is  to  be 
done  cannot  be  wrought  by  associations  alone,  nor 
by  young  men,  nor  by  any  men.  It  needs  fathers 
and  mothers  and  sons  and  daughters  and  firesides. 
The  only  way  to  keep  boys  from  the  haunts  of 
vice  is  to  open  to  them  the  abodes  of  virtue. 
Give  them  access  to  loving  families,  to  happy 
homes.  Nothing  can  supply  this  want.  No  at 
tendance  at  any  church  is  to  be  for  a  moment 
compared  to  attendance  at  the  sacred  shrine  of  an 
affeotionate  family.  But  when,  a  little  while  ago, 
a  young  man  who  had  been  for  years  a  clerk  in 
a  large  city,  was  asked  in  how  many  families  he 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  229 

was  acquainted,  he  replied  quickly,  "Not  one." 
Yet  he  was  a  member  of  an  Orthodox  Congrega 
tional  Church,  which,  I  take  it,  is  to  be  as  good 
as  anybody  can  be  in  this  world,  and  a  regular 
attendant  upon  religious  services  in  one  of  the 
most  influential  Orthodox  churches  in  the  city. 
Sunday  after  Sunday  he  was  in  his  seat,  yet 
neither  pastor  nor  people  —  not  one  of  all  that 
great  congregation  —  ever  took  him  by  the  hand 
and  constrained  him  to  sit  by  their  hearthstones, 
ever  welcomed  him  to  the  warmth  and  gladness 
and  gentle  endearments  of  their  homes.  What 
is  the  communion  of  saints  ?  If  that  young  man 
had  brought  a  letter  of  introduction  from  some 

^ 

distinguished  person,  would  they  have  thus  let 
him  go  in  and  out  among  them  unnoticed  and 
uncared  for  ?  But  to  church-members,  surely,  a 
certificate  of  church-membership  ought  to  be  as 
weighty  as  a  letter  of  introduction.  A  Christian 
church  should  be  so  managed  that  it  should  be 
impossible  for  any  attendant  upon  its  services  to 
escape  observation  ;  and  it  should  be  so  trained 
to  its  social  duties  that  every  person  who  takes 
shelter  in  its  sanctuary  should  at  least  have  the 
opportunity  to  find  shelter  in  its  homes.  I  think 
it  would  be  well,  even,  that  those  who  are  present 
at  a  single  church  service  should  be  courteously 
noticed  and  encouraged  to  repeat  the  visit.  If 
the  church  is  indeed  God's  house,  let  the  servants 
of  the  Master  dispense  His  hospitalities  in  such  a 


230  SUMMER  REST. 

manner  as  befits  His  divine  character,  remember 
ing  that  the  world  judges  of  Him  through  them. 
Let  fathers  and  mothers  be  on  the  watch  to  speak 
kindly  words  to  such  homeless  wanderers  as  may 
roam  within  the  circle  of  their  influence.  If  a 
stranger  is  introduced  into  the  family  pew,  let  him 
be  no  longer  a  stranger,  but  a  guest.  Let  him 
not  remain  during  the  service  and  pass  out  at  its 
close  without  some  brotherly  or  fatherly  recogni 
tion,  without  some  assurance  by  word  or  look  or 
little  attention  that  his  presence  there  gave  pleas 
ure.  This  is  a  beginning  of  home  feeling. 

It  would  be  a  fit  thing,  if  every  country  pastor 
should  give  to  every  boy  who  leaves  his  parish  a 
letter  of  introduction  to  some  clergyman  in  the 
city  whither  he  is  going,  so  that  there  should  be 
no  interregnum,  —  no  time  when  the  boy  should 
be  utterly  unfriended,  loosed  from  restraint,  and  a 
prey  to  unclean  and  hateful  things.  But  this  is 
not  done,  and  we  should  not  wait  for  it.  The 
Prince  of  Evil  never  stands  upon  etiquette.  He 
is  instant  in  season  and  out  of  season  ;  and  those 
who  would  circumvent  him  must  be  equally  prompt 
and  vigilant.  The  Church  should  weave  its  meshes 
of  watchful  care  and  love  and  friendship  so  close 
that  nobody  can  slip  through  unseen. 

A  duty  rests  upon  all  merchants  and  tradesmen, 
upon  all,  indeed,  who  employ  clerks  or  apprentices, 
which  is  not  discharged  when  their  quarterly  pay 
ments  arc  made.  A  man  is  in  some  respects  the 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  231 

father  of  the  young  men  whom  he  employs,  and 
he  should  do  them  fatherly  service.  It  is  not 
possible  to  enter  into  relations  with  any  human 
being  without  at  the  same  time  incurring  responsi 
bility  concerning  him.  How  much  might  be  done 
for  young  men,  if  merchants  would  feel  a  domestic 
as  well  as  a  mercantile  interest  in  them !  It  may 
not  be  advisable  to  renew  the  old  custom  of  mak 
ing  clerks  and  apprentices  members  of  the  mas 
ter's  family ;  but  surely  they  can  be  made  occa 
sional  guests  without  any  sacrifice  that  shall  seem 
too  great  to  the  followers  of  Him  who  laid  down 
the  glory  which  He  had  with  the  Father  before  the 
world  was,  only  that  He  might  save  sinners.  Is 
it  a  dangerous  thing  to  introduce  strangers  into  a 
young  family  ?  But  is  the  character  that  is  not 
good  enough  for  the  drawing-room  quite  harm 
less  in  the  counting-room  ?  If  merchants,  master 
mechanics,  and  employers  generally  would  set  a 
premium  upon  integrity  and  good  manners,  those 
qualities  would  not  long  be  found  wanting.  In 
calculable  is  the  influence  which  these  civilizing 
surroundings  would  have  upon  a  susceptible  boy. 
Only  let  them  come  in  early.  Do  not  wait  till  sin 
has  thrown  out  its  more  showy  lures,  and  then 
attempt  to  tear  him  away  from  them  already  half 
polluted;  but  while  his  soul  is  yet  unstained,  while, 
lonely,  inexperienced,  self-distrustful,  he  is  ready 
to  be  moulded  by  the  first  skilful  touch,  let  it  come 
from  the  wise  hands  of  honorable  and  responsible 


232  SUMMER  REST. 

men  whose  position  gives  weight  to  their  opinions 
and  from  the  gentle  hands  of  motherly  women. 
Provide,  —  even  if  it  be  at  the  cost  of  a  little 
pains,  a  little  sacrifice  of  the  quiet  and  seclusion 
of  home,  —  provide  for  his  youth  its  fitting  and 
innocent  delights,  that  sinful  pleasures  may  have 
no  uiarm  for  him.  The  good  which  the  merchant 
does  to  his  clerks  will  redound  to  the  good  of  his 
own  children.  There  is  probably  as  much  intelli 
gence  and  virtue  and  youthful  promise  among  his 
clerks  as  among  his  sons  and  daughters.  The  in 
fluence  of  man  upon  woman,  also,  is  just  as  health 
ful  as  that  of  woman  upon  man  ;  for  both  are  in 
the  order  of  Nature.  The  brothers  and  sisters  will 
dance  to  their  mother's  playing  all  the  more  glee 
fully  for  a  stranger  or  two  in  the  set ;  and  Mary 
will  enter  with  fresher  zest  into  the  game  of  cards, 
because  courteous  Mr.  Gordon  is  her  partner  in 
stead  of  her  teasing  brother.  And  it  is  not  whist 
nor  dancing  that  harms  young  people.  It  is  out 
lawry.  Whist  does  not  lead  to  gambling.  Dan 
cing  does  not  lead  to  dissipation.  It  is  playing 
cards  "  on  the  sly  "  that  leads  to  gambling.  It  is 
having  to  get  out  of  the  way  of  ministers,  and 
church-members,  and  all  religious  people,  when 
there  is  to  be  dancing,  that  leads  to  dissipation. 
It  is  loneliness,  want  of  interest  and  diversion,  any 
unjust  and  unnatural  restriction  that  leads  to  all 
manner  of  wild  and  boisterous  and  vicious  amuse 
ments,  which  prey  upon  the  soul.  If  to  a  young 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  233 

man,  on  his  first  coming  to  the  city,  there  open 
only  two  or  three  houses,  where  he  can  now  and 
then  find  welcome,  —  where  are  two  or  three  ex 
cellent  women  who  exercise  a  gentle  jurisdiction 
over  him,  who  will  notice  if  his  eye  be  heavy 
or  his  cheek  pale,  who  will  administer,  upon  occa 
sion,  a  little  sweet  motherly  chiding,  mend  a  rent 
in  his  gloves,  advise  in  the  choice  of  a  necktie, 
and  call  upon  him  occasionally  for  trifling  ser 
vice  or  attendance, — where  he  can  find  a  few 
hot-headed,  perhaps,  but  well-fathered  and  well- 
mothered  boys,  who  have  the  same  headstrong 
will,  the  same  fierce  likes  and  dislikes,  the  same 
temptations  and  weaknesses  as  himself,  but  who 
are  saved  from  disaster  by  gentle  but  firm  au 
thority,  and  constant  yet  scarcely  perceptible  in 
fluence,  —  a  few  bright  girls,  who  will  sing  and 
dance  and  talk  with  him,  and  probably  pique  and 
tantalize  him,  —  how  greatly  are  the  chances  mul 
tiplied  against  his  ever  turning  aside  into  the  de 
basing  saloon  !  He  naturally  likes  purity  better 
than  impurity.  The  interests  of  a  man  at  whose 
table  he  sits,  whose  children  are  his  companions, 
whose  wife  is  his  friend  and  confidante,  will  be  far 
nearer  to  him  than  those  of  one  whom  he  rarely 
sees  and  little  knows.  Something  of  the  home  at 
mosphere  will  cling  to  office-walls,  and  soften  the 
sharp  outlines  and  sweeten  the  unfragrant  air  of 
perpetual  traffic  and  self-seeking.  Pure  society 
will  be  a  constant  inducement  to  keep  himself 


234  SUMMER  REST. 

pure.  Reading,  studying,  riding,  singing,  driv 
ing,  boating,  ball-playing  with  well-bred  and  high 
hearted  young  friends  will  give  plentiful  outlet 
to  his  animal  spirits,  plentiful  gratification  to  his 
social  wants,  plentiful  food  for  his  mental  hunger ; 
and  while  he  is  thus  enjoying  the  pleasures  which 
are  but  the  lawful  dues  of  his  spring-time,  he 
will  be  all  the  while  becoming  more  and  more 
worthy  of  love  and  respect,  more  and  more  fitted 
to  bear,  in  his  turn,  the  burdens  of  Church  and 
State.  And  if,  in  spite  of  it  all,  his  feet  are  still 
swift  to  do  evil,  it  will  be  a  satisfaction  to  those 
who  thus  have  striven  for  his  welfare  to  know 
that  his  blood  is  not  on  them  nor  on  their  chil 
dren. 

There  are  other  things  to  be  taken  into  account. 
The  leisure  of  Saturday  afternoon  must,  it  would 
seem,  conduce  greatly  to  quiet  Sundays.  When 
young  men  are  confined  six  long  days  behind  the 
counter,  it  is  but  natural  that  on  the  seventh  they 
should  give  themselves  to  merry-making.  For,  let 
it  be  remembered,  sport  is  as  natural,  yes,  and  as 
necessary,  to  youth  as  worship ;  and  in  the  order 
of  human  development,  it  comes  first.  It  is  very 
hard  to  say  to  a  boy :  "  You  have  been  writing, 
and  weighing,  and  measuring  all  the  week.  Now 
the  sun  is  shining,  the  birds  are  singing,  the  flowers 
blooming,  the  river  sparkling,  and  boat  and  horse 
await  your  hand,  but  you  must  turn  away  from 
them  all  and  go  to  church.  You  have  been  boxed 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  235 

up  for  six  days,  and  now  you  must  be  boxed  up 
again.  There  is  no  fresh  air,  there  are  no  summer 
sounds  for  you ;  but  only  noise  and  dust  and  pave 
ments  all  the  days  of  your  life."  It  happens,  at 
any  rate,  that  there  is  no  use  in  saying  this  ;  for 
young  blood  overleaps  it  all,  and  city  suburbs  re 
sound  on  Sunday  with  the  clatter  of  hoofs  and 
the  rattle  of  wheels  ;  and  no  one  need  be  surprised, 
who  has  any  acquaintance  with  human  nature 
on  the  one  side,  or  any  conception  of  the  irksome- 
ness  of  continued  confinement  on  the  other.  It 
would,  indeed,  be  a  strange,  and,  I  think,  a  sad 
thing,  if  young  people  were  willing  to  let  suns 
rise,  and  stars  set,  and  all  the  beautiful  changes 
of  Nature  go  on,  without  an  irresistible,  instinc 
tive  prompting  to  fly  from  the  grave  monotony 
of  the  city,  and  live  and  breathe  in  her  freshness 
and  her  loveliness.  If  a  young  man  must  choose 
between  play  of  muscle,  the  free  air  of  the  hills, 
and  sitting  in  an  ill- ventilated  church,  he  will  often 
choose  the  former;  and  if  he  cannot  enjoy  these 
things  without  going  in  opposition  to  the  best 
sense  of  the  community,  if  they  cannot  be  com 
passed  without  a  certain  consciousness  of  wrong 
doing,  they  will  lead  to  recklessness  and  lawless 
ness  ;  for  compassed  they  will  be. 

But  let  the  young  men  have  Saturday  afternoon 
for  their  boating  and  bowling  and  various  other 
pastimes,  and  they  will  be  far  more  disposed  to 
hear  what  the  minister  has  to  say  on  Sunday,  — 


236  SUMMER  REST. 

far  more  disposed,  let  us  hope,  to  join  in  prayer 
and  praise.  One  very  obvious  and  practical  con 
sideration  is,  that  many  of  them,  probably  the 
larger  part,  can  spend  on  a  single  holiday  all  the 
holiday  money  they  have  to  spend ;  so  there  will 
be  nothing  for  it  but  to  stay  at  home  on  Sunday  by 
force  of  the  res  angustce  domi.  And  is  it  too  much 
to  believe,  that,  the  half-day  having  given  them 
that  physical  exercise,  amusement,  and  change 
which  they  need,  Sunday  will  find  them  the  more 
read}?-  to  receive  and  appropriate  spiritual  nourish 
ment  ?  I  have  said  that  sport  is  as  natural  and 
necessary  as  worship.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
worship  is  as  natural  as  sport.  Very  few,  I 
think,  are  the  persons,  young  or  old,  in  all  of 
whose  thoughts  it  may  be  said  God  is  not.  And 
if  this  natural,  spontaneous  turning  to  God  were 
not  interfered  with  by  our  pernicious  modes  of 
training  and  management,  we  should  not  be 
come  so  fearfully  alienated  from  Him.  Play  and 
work  and  worship  would  be  animated  by  one 
spirit.  Many  surely  there  are  who  would  be  more 
likely  to  devote  a  part  of  their  Sunday  to  the  direct 
worship  of  God,  and  to  a  more  intimate  knowledge 
of  His  works  and  words,  who  would  be  more 
likely  to  come  under  the  influence  of  the  Bible 
and  the  pulpit,  from  having  had  opportunity  first 
to  free  their  lungs  from  the  foul  air,  and  their 
limbs  from  the  lifelessness,  which  a  long  confine 
ment  to  business  had  caused.  At  least  let  us  not 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  237 

tempt  any  to  make  Sunday  a  day  of  fun  and  frolic, 
by  giving  them  no  other  day  for  their  fun  and 
frolic.  Provide  things  honest  in  the  sight  of  all 
men. 

Women  can  do  much  towards  bringing  about 
this  holiday,  and  towards  keeping  it  intact  when  it 
is  once  secured.  Let  every  woman  make  a  point 
of  doing  no  shopping  on  Saturday  afternoons.  A 
very  little  forethought  will  prevent  any  incon 
venience  from  the  deprivation.  If  a  tradesman 
chooses  to  keep  his  shop  open  on  Saturdays,  when 
others  of  the  same  kind  are  shut,  let  every  woman 
take  care  not  only  not  to  enter  it  on  that  day,  but 
not  to  enter  it  on  any  day.  And  in  order  that 
the  holiday  may  begin  as  promptly  as  the  working- 
day,  women  should  not  put  off  their  purchases  till 
the  last  minute  before  closing.  If  the  shops  are  to 
be  shut  at  two  o'clock,  let  no  one  enter  them  after 
one  o'clock,  except  in  case  of  emergency.  If  the 
clerks  have  to  take  down  goods  from  their  shelves, 
overhaul  box  and  drawer,  and  unroll  and  unfold 
and  derange  till  the  time  for  closing  arrives,  an 
hour  or  an  hour  and  a  half  of  their  holiday  must 
be  consumed  in  the  work  of  putting  the  store  to 
rights.  Let  this  last  hour  of  the  working-week  be 

O  t5 

spent  in  arrangement,  not  in  derangement.  Be 
ashamed  to  ask  a  clerk  to  disturb  a  shelf  which  has 
just  been  set  in  Sunday  order.  Let  the  young 
men  be  ready,  so  that,  when  the  clock  strikes  the 
hour,  release  may  come. 


238  SUMMER  REST. 

H.  Did  I  ever  tell  you  about  my  talk  awhile 
ago  with  Mr.  Ambrose? 

I.  No.     What  Mr.  Ambrose  ? 

H.  O  yes  I  did,  and  you  got  the  idea  of  this 
essay  from  it. 

I.  What  assurance  !  I  never  heard  a  word 
about  it.  I  did  not  know  you  had  seen  him. 

H.  Well,  I  have,  and  he  gave  me  a  chapter  of 
his  experience  and  experiments  on  this  very  point. 
He  employs  six  or  eight  men  on  his  farm.  When 
his  head  man  went  there  last  spring,  Mr.  Ambrose 
told  him  that  he  wanted  the  Sabbath  respected, 
and  only  such  work  done  on  that  day  as  could 
not  be  done  on  Saturday  or  Monday.  Afterwards, 
reflecting  on  this  matter  of  observing  the  Sabbath, 
he  became  convinced  that,  as  an  employer,  requir 
ing  six  working-days  in  the  week  of  his  men  and 
boys,  he  was  to  a  great  degree  responsible  for 
whatever  wrong  was  done  in  the  way  of  spending 
the  Sabbath  in  recreation.  The  first  thing  he  did 
was  to  write  an  article  for  some  country  paper, 
arguing  that  the  fractions  of  a  day  now  at  the  la 
borer's  command  were  wholly  insufficient.  After 
taking  time  to  mature  the  plan  in  his  own  mind 
and  give  it  a  practical  shape,  he  told  his  boys 
that  for  the  future,  such  weeks  as  contain  national 
holidays  excepted,  he  should  give  them  each  Sat 
urday  afternoon,  on  condition  that  they  would 
attend  meeting  on  the  Sabbath.  They  agreed  to 
this  gladly  enough.  Benny,  the  oldest,  spoke  up 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  239 

and  said,  "I  go  to  meeting  now  all  day  and  the 
evening  too."  He  omitted  to  mention  that  as  sure 
as  he  did  go  he  slept  through  the  services,  and 
Mr.  Ambrose  felt  that  it  did  not  become  him  to 
cast  a  stone  at  poor  Benny,  holding  that  he  him 
self  had  done  too  much  thus  far  to  close  his  eyes. 

I.  Did  he  say  how  the  experiment  fared  ? 

H.  So  well  that  he  means  to  try  it  with  the  men. 

/.  Now  that  is  good  news.  One  such  case  is 
worth  more  than  a  dozen  theories,  because  it  shows 
that  the  thing  is  practical.  It  can  be  done.  And 
it  ought  to  be  done.  There  is  charming  Rose 
Crichton  fretting  in  her  new  home  because  Fred 
has  to  be  at  the  store  so  much.  It  is  the  trial  of 
her  life,  her  one  daily  cause  of  vexation  and  useless 
longing.  "  It  is  a  shame,  and  a  disgrace,  and  an 
utter  mistake,"  says  Rose,  who  is  apt  to  fall  into 
the  Pauline  style  when  she  is  very  much  in  ear 
nest.  "  Just  see  how  it  is  with  Fred,"  she  writes, 
and  I  brought  the  letter  along  on  purpose  to  read 
it  to  you  "  in  this  connection,"  as  the  ministers 
say,  "  and  I  can't  find  out  that  it  is  really  mucli 
better  with  any  gentlemen,  except  that  salaried 
ones  are  less  their  own  masters.  But  those  who 
own  business  are  so  foolish  that  they  won't  give 
themselves  much  more  time.  Fred  has  to  be  at 
the  store  at  half  past  seven,  —  then  he  has  an  hour 
at  noon  to  come  home  a  mile  for  dinner,  and 
can't  leave  till  half  past  six  at  night.  There  is 
never  a  holiday,  —  even  on  the  regular  holidays, 


240  SUMMER  REST. 

Christmas,  Thanksgiving,  and  so  forth,  he  can't 
get  more  than  half  a  holiday,  and  the  whole  rest 
and  recreation  of  the  year  has  to  be  crowded  into 
three  weeks  in  August.  Ah,  but  Sunday  is  a 
blessed  day !  I  never  fully  appreciated  it  before 
we  were  married.  We  go  to  church  and  Sunday 
school  in  the  morning,  and  in  the  afternoon,  if  it  is 
pleasant,  Fred  takes  a  long  walk,  and  I  go  with 
him  when  I  can.  Don't  you  think  it  is  right  ?  I 
am  quite  clear  on  that  point.  You  see  he  can 
never  take  me  anywhere  in  the  week  days.  I 
think  every  store  should  be  closed  by  five  o'clock, 
and  then,  as  soon  as  people  get  used  to  that,  by 
four ;  and  then  there  should  be  a  half-holiday  once 
in  a  week  or  two  for  men  in  every  kind  of  busi 
ness."  There  you  have  Rose's  opinion,  "  all  for 
love  and  nothing  for  reward." 

O 

H.  You  can  hardly  expect  the  traffic  of  the 
world  to  turn  on  a  girl's  wish  to  have  her  Fred 

o 

come  home  to  an  early  supper. 

I.  Now,  Halicarnassus,  excuse  me,  but  that  is 
a  stupid  speech  for  you  to  make.  Sometimes  you 
are  thoughtful  and  sensible  and  reasonable,  and  it 
is  really  pleasant  to  talk  with  you.  And  again  you 
seem  somehow  to  shut  up  all  your  sense  in  a  shell, 
and  turn  into  a  fossil,  and  one  cannot  make  the 
least  headway  with  you. 

Instead  of  being  shamed  by  this  reproof,  Hali 
carnassus  only  fanned  himself  languidly  with  his 
hat,  and  hummed  some  silly  old  song  or  other. 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  241 

"  If  I  had  a  donkey 

And  he  would  n't  go, 
Do  you  think  I'd  wallop  him  ? 
O  no,  no,  no  !  " 

Sometimes  there  is  no  getting  on  with  him.  He 
takes  a  position  from  mere  whim,  and  holds  it. 
The  most  faithful  and  searching  rebuke  produces 
no  visible  effect.  He  looks  upon  it  as  a  good  joke. 
All  your  earnestness  is  so  much  phenomenon,  help 
ing  him  to  analyze  your  character,  but  bearing  not 
the  least  on  the  question.  I  feared  he  was  ossify 
ing  into  such  a  mood  at  the  present  time.  But  I 
went  on. 

I.  You  may  depend  upon  it,  if  the  traffic  of  the 
world  considered  more  the  nature  of  girls  and  boys 
too,  there  would  be  less  sin  in  the  world.  And  I 
should  like  to  know  if  it  is  not  better  for  traffic  to 
wait  upon  souls  than  it  is  for  souls  to  wait  upon 
traffic  ?  Business  is  for  man's  uses ;  man  is  not 
made  for  business. 

H.  Yes,  I  have  seen  a  good  many  men  who  did 
not  seem  made  for  business. 

I.  Fred  Crichton  has  good  principles  and  a  good 
wife.  So  the  harm  done  him  is  chiefly  in  the  way 
of  cheapening,  not  corrupting  life.  It  is  made  less 
productive,  less  satisfying,  than  it  ought  to  be.  But 
many  a  man  who  has  not  firm  principles  or  a  good 
wife  suffers  a  sore  injury.  Worldly  people  are 
not  expected  to  act  from  other  than  worldly  mo 
tives,  but  the  Church  professes  to  stand  on  higher 
11  p 


242  SUMMER  REST. 

ground.  Now  if  the  religious  community  would 
at  once  and  resolutely  decree  that  all  in  her  em 
ploy  should  have  time  for  rest,  how  long  would  it 
be  before  the  irreligious  community  would  follow 
suit  ? 

H.  Don't  bring  whist  into  theology. 

I.  Whist  yourself!  No,  we  are  too  greedy. 
We  will  not  miss  a  chance  for  making  money. 
We  cannot  work  on  Sunday.  The  law  forbids  it. 
So  we  can  afford  to  be  religious  then,  but  as  for 
wasting  good  working  time  in  religion,  it  is  not 
to  be  thought  of. 

If.  By  "  religion "  I  suppose  you  now  mean 
recreation,  holiday  amusements. 

I.  Yes,  sir,  I  do,  notwithstanding  your  sneer. 
If  from  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  or,  more 
simply,  because  he  thinks  he  ought,  an  employer 
gives  his  men  a  half-holiday  every  week,  or  an 
hour  or  two  of  leisure  every  day,  I  call  it  religion, 
and  religion  of  the  very  best  kind.  And  I  be 
lieve  in  it  far  more  than  in  the  piety  that  keeps 
every  one  at  hard  labor  all  the  week  and  arrogates 
to  itself  superior  virtue  because  it  would  keep 
them  at  hard  labor  on  Sunday  if  it  could. 

If.  Yet  the  numerous  holidays  of  Europe  do 
not  seem  to  have  had  a  good  effect  on  the  peo- 
pie. 

I.  A  carnival  every  now  and  then  is  a  different 
thing  from  a  regularly  recurring  day,  or  hour  of 
rest,  —  so  different  that  you  cannot  reason  from 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  243 

the  one  to  the  other.  The  regular  rest  falls  at 
once  into  the  general  plan,  has  its  portion  allotted 
to  it  duly  like  any  day.  An  hour  at  the  close  of 
every  work-day  for  fifty  days  is  a  boon  where  fifty 
hours  of  idleness  taken  together  might  be  a  bane. 
Besides,  I  suspect  there  is  a  greater  intensity  of 
work  in  our  country  than  in  any  other. 

H.  I  was  looking  at  one  of  the  base-ball  matches 
on  Boston  Common  one  day,  and  I  overheard  a 
portly  old  gentleman  at  my  elbow  say  to  another, 
"  Two  thousand  people  here  ;  that  is  four  thou 
sand  dollars  thrown  away."  That  was  a  con 
scientious  old  codger,  no  doubt. 

/.  "  Thrown  away  !  "  The  most  wasteful  habit 
we  have  is  squandering  time,  and  happiness,  and 
health  for  money,  which  in  the  greatest  quantity 
is  no  equivalent. 

H.  They  who  feel  no  need  of  amusement  them 
selves  are  apt  to  suppose  that  no  one  else  needs  it. 

I.  Never  a  soul  was  made  that  did  not  need 
amusement.  Only  some  can  make  it  for  them 
selves  and  others  need  to  have  it  provided. 

H.  I  did  not  say  those  who  have  no  need,  but 
those  who  feel  no  need.  Stick  a  pin  there. 

/.  Well,  that  is  a  proper  distinction.  Why,  I 
can  count  up  ever  so  many  people,  excellent  per 
sons,  fathers  and  mothers  in  Israel,  who  do  not 
know  in  the  least  what  ails  them,  but  really  they 
are  languishing  for  want  of  concert,  and  opera, 
and  theatre,  and  dancing  — 


244  SUMMER  REST. 

H.  Here,  here !  What  heresies  are  you  pour 
ing  forth  ?  I  will  have  you  read  out  of  meeting ! 

I.  Heresy  or  orthodoxy,  it  is  truth.  Their 
lives  lack  ideality.  They  are  painfully  empty. 
They  need  something  fine  and  grand  to  take  them 
above  the  plane  of  mere  labor. 

H.  Something  finer  and  grander  than  religion  ! 

I.  Religion  is  not  a  definite  department,  —  a 
ponderable  substance,  something  visible,  and  tan 
gible,  and  to  be  disposed  of.  Religion  is  more 
like  air.  You  may  furnish  a  house  with  every 
comfort  and  every  elegance,  and  if  it  has  no  air 
it  will  be  only  a  tomb.  If  you  fill  it  with  air 
and  nothing  else,  you  will  die  of  starvation.  To 
make  air  a  substitute  for  food  or  warmth  or  shel 
ter,  or  to  make  these  a  substitute  for  air,  is  fatal. 
So  if  you  furnish  your  life  with  employment,  rec 
reation,  leisure,  but  close  it  against  religion,  you 
fail  at  a  vital  point,  and  if  you  undertake  to  ex 
clude  employment  or  recreation  or  leisure,  and 
put  religion  in  its  stead,  you  are  in  equally  im 
minent  danger.  Religion,  like  air,  takes  up  no 
room.  What  it  finds  vacant  it  leaves  vacant.  But 
it  permeates  everything.  You  want  your  life  just 
as  full  as  if  there  were  no  such  thing  as  religion, 
and  when  it  is  thus  full  you  want  a  steady  cur 
rent  of  religion  to  flow  in  upon  it  and  flood  it 
and  sink  into  it,  so  that  everything  should  be  as 
it  were  tainted  with  religion. 

H.  A  felicitous  expression  ! 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  245 

I.  Well,  everything  should  savor  of  religion, 
if  that  is  any  better.  Love  to  God  arid  love  to 
man  should,  —  not  he  harped  upon, — but  should 
be  the  living  soul,  the  hidden  principle,  of  life. 

H.  You  picture  the  mind  as  a  room,  which  is 
too  mechanical.  It  is  more  like  a  field. 

I.  And  religion  ripens  the  seeds  which  have 
been  planted  in  it  ?  yes.  But  never  mind  the  fig 
ures.  What  I  want  to  get  at  is,  that  religion  does 
not  occupy  any  place,  and  cannot  be  made  a  sub 
stitute  for  anything  that  does  occupy  place.  It 
may  save  you  in  the  last  extremity,  but  it  saves 
from  despair,  not  from  death.  So  of  course  you 
cannot  take  out  anything  which  the  soul  really 
needs,  and  expect  to  fill  up  the  void  with  religion. 
But  that  is  just  what  many  attempt  to  do.  And 
what  is  the  result  ?  The  young  people,  denied  re 
fining  and  ennobling  pleasures  guided  by  experi 
ence,  fall  into  coarse  and  degrading  ones.  That  is 
one  very  common  result.  Another,  almost  uni 
versal,  is  that  the  life  of  religious  communities  be 
comes  thin  and  meagre.  We  take  a  good  deal  of 
satisfaction  in  deploring  the  hollowness  and  frivol 
ity  of  fashionable  circles,  and  doubtless  they  are 
often  hollow  and  frivolous,  but  if  you  compare 
the  conversation  that  takes  place  at  the  sewing- 
circle,  or  the  tea-party,  or  the  Fair  of  the  Or 
thodox  or  the  Baptist  or  the  Methodist  Society 
and  that  which  takes  place  at  the  dinner-party 
or  the  evening  party  of  the  gay  leader  of  fashion, 


246  SUMMER  REST. 

you  will  hardly  find  any  more  spirituality,  any 
more  lofty  and  generous  views,  more  breadth  or 
depth  or  quickness  of  insight,  any  more  traces 
of  inward  experience  in  the  one  than  in  the  other. 
There  seems  to  be  little  more  real  acquaintance 
with  the  Divine  Being,  or  conception  of  the  Di 
vine  character,  in  the  one  than  in  the  other.  If 
you  think,  my  hearers,  that  by  going  to  sleep  you 
will  hush  me  up  any  sooner,  I  fear  you  are  doomed 
to  disappointment.  It  clears  my  mind  wonder 
fully  to  empty  it.  I  do  not  know  what  I  think 
myself  till  I  talk  it  over.  (Halicarnassus  nod 
ded,  but  whether  it  were  a  nod  of  wakeful  assent 
or  sleepy  indifference  was  not  quite  certain.)  A 
fine  woman  is  a  fine  woman  wherever  you  find 
her ;  but  I  have  found  fine  women  as  often  in 
gay  society,  in  opera-going,  and  theatre-going,  and 
party-giving  society  as  in  any  other.  The  moral 
perpendicular  seems  to  be  as  often  attained  out 
of  church  as  in  it.  If  I  know  that  a  man  is  a 
member  of  the  Church,  I  am  confident  he  is  not 
a  drunkard,  nor  a  thief,  nor  an  adulterer ;  but  I 
am  by  no  means  sure  that  he  is  not  unjust,  extor 
tioner,  and  very  much  like  the  publicans.  Church 
teaching,  or  pulpit  teaching,  or  whatever  you  may 
call  it,  —  you  know  what  I  mean,  or  would  know 
if  you  were  awake,  —  does  not,  as  far  as  I  can 
see,  produce  any  more  sweetness  of  disposition,  or 
charity  of  judgment,  or  love  to  one's  neighbor,  or 
any  more  divorce  from  the  pleasures  of  the  world 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  247 

and  of  sense,  from  envy  and  backbiting,  than  the 
teachings  of  the  stage  and  the  ball-room.  It  is  not 
in  the  least  more  heavenly-minded  to  be  discuss 
ing  your  minister's  wife,  than  Hackett  or  Char 
lotte  Cushman.  I  do  not  feel  any  more  devo 
tional  when  I  turn  with  the  audience  to  face  Miss 
Jones  as  she  is  trilling  out  her  solo,  in  her  best 
clothes  Sunday  morning,  than  I  do  or  did  when 
listening  to  Patti  singing  her  songs  in  her  best 
clothes  Monday  evening. 

H.  O,  Patti  was  a  sweet  little  singing-bird.  I 
hope  they  will  not  spoil  her  and  marry  her  and 
bury  her  over  there.  Is  it  the  opera  you  are 
speaking  of  and  the  theatre  ?  No  harm  in  the 
thing  itself,  of  course.  It  is  the  attendant  evils 
that  make  it  an  evil. 

I.  My  friend,  no  emergency  forces  you  to  speak  ; 
but  if  you  do  speak,  pray  do  not  say  a  thing  which 
has  been  said  a  hundred  times  before,  and  had  no 
substance  to  begin  with. 

H.  Libenter  tuis  prceceptis  obsequar,  si  te  prius 
idem  facientem  videro. 

(Let  not  the  unlearned  reader  be  terrified  by 
this  show  of  erudition.  It  is  only  Latin  Lessons, 
and  too  ill-mannered  for  our  mother  tongue.) 

I.  But  whenever  I  repeat  an  old  truth,  it  is  to 
give  it  new  force.  When  you  do  it,  it  is  from 
poverty  of  resources.  Observe,  now,  the  stand 
ing  argument  against  these  things  is  not  them 
selves,  but  their  attendant  evils.  But  you  and  I 


248  SUMMER  REST. 

have  been  to  theatre  many  times.  Did  we  ever 
drink  there,  or  gamble,  or  fall  into  bad  company  ? 

H.  You  were  in  good  company,  without  cavil. 

I.  That  was  a  rhetorical  question,  and  you  need 
not  have  troubled  yourself  to  answer  it ;  but  why 
shall  we  fear  that  others  will  not  fare  as  well  as 
we  ?  If  the  evils  that  cling  to  the  outskirts  of  an 
institution  are  a  reason  for  the  abolition  of  the  in 
stitution,  theatres  are  not  the  only  things  that  must 
go  by  the  board.  Precisely  the  same  kind  of  vice 
that  attaches  to  the  theatre  attaches  to  the  camp- 
meeting  ;  but  I  have  never  heard  that  our  Meth 
odist  brethren  propose  to  give  up  their  camp-meet 
ings  in  consequence.  What  they  do  is,  by  vigilant 
efforts,  by  an  efficient  police,  to  check  the  evil  as 
far  as  possible ;  but  they  have  their  camp-meetings 
every  year,  in  spite  of  the  drunkenness  and  immo 
rality  of  their  camp-followers.  Who  can  show 
cause  why  theatres  may  not  be  conducted  on  the 
same  principle  ?  Let  them  be  supported  by  Chris 
tian  people,  and  become  a  school  of  Christian  man 
ners  and  morals.  Nobody  objects  to  the  dialogues 
spoken  in  the  schools.  Let  a  theatre  be  the  same 
thing  on  a  larger  scale. 

H.  The  experiment  has  been  often  tried  without 
success. 

/.  It  is  high  time,  then,  to  try  it  with  success. 

H.  You  will  find  also  that  some  of  the  best  per 
sons  on  the  stage  are  the  most  opposed  to  having 
their  friends  adopt  the  actor's  profession.  They 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  249 

believe  it  to  be  hurtful  to  health  and  to  character. 
Is  it  right  to  encourage  a  profession  which,  in  the 
judgment  of  those  who  know  most  about  it,  is  fatal 
to  those  who  adopt  it  ? 

L  That  I  cannot  tell.  If  what  you  say  is  true, 
it  must  just  stand  on  the  per  contra  side.  But  it  is 
inconsistent  in  us  to  bring  up  such  an  objection  in 
any  other  spirit  than  that  of  benevolence,  for  we 
encourage  similarly  hurtful  exhibitions.  Our  sem 
inaries  and  high  schools  have  their  public  examina 
tions.  The  public  rushes  in  and  fills  the  school 
room.  The  teachers,  though  they  are  often  young 
women,  are  forced  to  conduct  their  classes  through 
a  recitation  in  the  presence  of  the  promiscuous 
assembly.  There  is  just  as  much  publicity  about 
it  as  there  is  about  acting  in  a  theatre,  with  the 
additional  cruelty,  that  the  teachers  do  not  like 
their  part,  and  act  it  from  compulsion  only, 
while  the  actress  does  like  hers,  and  acts  it  from 
choice. 

H.  Yet  very  often  — 

L  Please  not  keep  thrusting  in  when  I  am  talk 
ing.  You  don't  give  me  a  chance  to  say  any 
thing.  (I  am  sure  he  laughed  under  his  hat, 
but  I  am  proof  against  ridicule.  He  has  plenty 
of  opportunity  to  promulgate  his  views,  but  just 
now  I  have  the  floor.)  In  these  same  thronged 
public  halls  young  girls  not  out  of  their  teens 
go  through  their  recitations,  face  the  great  audi 
ence  alone  to  read  a  composition,  straining  their 
11* 


250  SUMMER  REST. 

girlish  voices  to  unnatural  and  unmusical  loud- 
ness  — 

H.  Queen  Victoria  — 

I.  There  you  are  at  it  again  !  I  suppose  you  are 
going  to  say  that  Queen  Victoria  reads  her  speech 
to  the  Parliament.  But  she  is  public  property, 
and  nothing  to  the  purpose.  The  point  is,  that  we 
object  to  the  world's  putting  women  on  the  stage, 
and  yet  we  .put  our  young  girls  on  the  stage  with 
out  scruple ;  and  not  only  to  recite  and  to  read 
composition,  but  to  play  plays ;  and  not  only  plays, 
but  poor  plays.  I  have  been  at  school-exhibitions, 
some  in  church  and  some  in  school-house,  and 
have  seen  young  girls  take  part  in  dialogues  that 
were  coarse  and  pert,  dialogues  whose  direct  ten 
dency  was  to  make  these  girls  forward,  flippant, 
unladylike,  and  disagreeable. 

H.  Amen  ! 

I.  I  knew  that  you  would  agree  with  me,  and, 
what  is  more,  I  know  that  you  have  been  agree 
ing  with  me,  only  more  so,  all  along,  in  spite  of 
your  futile  attempts  at  objections.  But  I  do  not 
mean  to  go  on  a  crusade  for  theatres.  I  do  not 
care  about  them  particularly,  though  I  do  main 
tain  it  would  be  an  advantage  to  more  than  one 
community  I  wot  of  if  it  could  go  to  a  good  play 
once  a  week  or  so,  and  thereby  enlarge  its  sphere 
of  knowledge,  get  its  thoughts  turned  away  from 
itself,  so  as  to  have  something  to  talk  about  be 
sides  its  own  affairs ;  for  the  constant  contempla- 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  251 

tion  of  self  is  fatal  to  the  whole  man.  Selfishness 
gets  into  religion,  and  is  just  as  poisonous  there 
as  anywhere  else.  To  hear  some  of  our  good 
Christian  brethren  speak  in  meeting,  one  would 
suppose  the  main  object  of  life  is  to  save  your 
soul;  now  I  suspect  if  people  would  let  their 
souls  alone  and  pay  their  debts,  and  keep  their 
promises,  and  try  to  make  everybody  happy,  — 
children  and  horses  and  dogs  and  cats,  —  and 
not  be  suspicious  and  envious,  and  not  offend 
the  tastes  or  the  feelings  of  their  associates,  and 
keep  their  communication  with  Heaven  always 
open,  it  would  be  better  every  way.  In  this  great 
world,  this  great  universe,  this  great  eternity,  it 
does  not  seem  to  be  very  dignified,  nor  very 
ennobling,  to  be  all  the  while  coddling  your  own 
one  little  soul.  We  ought  to  be  filled  with  God, 
not  with  ourselves. 

H.  Our  souls  may  not  be  as  big  as  the  universe, 
but  they  are  a  pretty  important  object  to  us.  But 
I  was  thinking  of  the  tenacity  with  which  society 
clings  to  the  theatre,  in  spite  of  all  religious  op 
position  ;  and  seeing  this,  it  is  singular  that  we 
do  not  recognize  the  power  of  dramatic  repre 
sentation,  and  take  possession  of  it  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord. 

/.  It  is  so  much  easier  to  condemn  outright  and 
by  wholesale  than  it  is  to  discriminate. 

H.  Easier  in  the  process,  but  bitter  hard  in 
the  result. 


252  SUMMER  REST. 

I.  It  seems  to  me,  Halicarnassus,  that  there  is 
something  in  everything  — 

If.  Yes,  dear,  I  think  so  myself. 

I.  But  I  mean  that  there  is  some  truth  in 
every  great,  spreading  falsehood,  —  a  core  of  vir 
tue  in  every  vice ;  at  least,  it  is  something  like 
that.  I  cannot  seem  to  get  at  it  precisely,  but 
if  you  study  closely  and  wisely  the  follies  and  vices 
of  society,  you  will  find  out  its  real  wisdom  and 
goodness. 

If.  What  you  mean  is,  I  suppose,  that  our  sins 
as  well  as  our  holinesses  are  in  the  line  of  our 
nature,  and  it  is  only  by  looking  at  both  that  you 
can  find  what  nature  is. 

I.  Yes,  I  rather  think  that  is  it ;  and  having 
found  that,  we  are  to  cut  off  only  the  sin,  not  the 
nature  itself.  Now  you  speak  of  taking  posses 
sion  of  the  theatre.  I  would  take  possession  of 
everything  which  is  confessed  to  be  in  itself,  or 
to  be  capable  of  becoming  sinless,  and  which  is 
seen  to  be  agreeable,  and  would  bring  it  into  the 
service  of  man.  For  it  is  a  question  between 
liberty  and  license,  between  rational  pleasure  and 
irrational  excess,  between  a  natural  life  and  un 
natural  death.  Nature,  nature  is  what  we  need 
to  know. 

If.  And  we  should  know  it  by  theorizing  less, 
and  dogmatizing  less,  and  observing  more. 

I.  And  by  looking  at  other  communities,  and 
other  nations,  and  other  ages  instead  of  confin- 


THE  KINGDOM  COMING.  253 

ing  our  observations  to  our  one  little  spot  in  time 
and  space,  and  assuming  that  we  are  the  people 
and  wisdom  shall  die  with  us.  Think  now  how 
fair  a  thing  our  society  might  be  if  we  would  cull 
the  choicest  flowers  of  every  age  and  nation  to 
adorn  it,  —  retain  all  that  is  strong  in  New  Eng 
land  life  and  combine  with  it  all  that  is  sweet  in 
foreign  life.  If  we  could  be  as  graceful  as  we 
are  energetic !  If  we  could  know  how  to  play 
as  well  as  how  to  work  ! 

H.  We  do  not  know  how  to  work  until  we 
know  how  to  play. 

I.  Not  truly,  for  they  are  one  in  aim  and  both 
alike  religious. 

H.  Do  you  suppose  you  will  accomplish  any 
thing  from  all  your  lucubrations? 

/.  Oh !  No.  That  is,  if  you  bring  it  down 
to  a  plain  statement  of  fact,  —  no. 

Coleridge  used  to  answer  his  opponents  by  cour 
teously  admitting  their  objections,  and  then  going 
on  with  his  magnificent  harangues  as  if  nothing 
had  been  said.  That  is  the  way  of  the  world. 
And  sometimes  it  seems  as  if  one  might  as  well  let 
everything  go  and  just  go  with  it.  But  that  is 
impossible.  And,  besides,  for  all  this  logical  de 
spair,  in  my  feeling  there  is  a  great  assurance  of 
hope,  a  confidence  of  expectation.  I  know  the 
fixity  of  things  is  terrible,  yet  I  feel  if  you  speak 
it  is  done.  Especially  in  summer.  No  summer 
opens  but  I  feel  it  has  something  beautiful  for  me 


254  SUMMER  REST. 

in  its  gift.  Some  strange  happiness,  some  mar 
vellous  good  fortune  is  about  to  befall.  The  tenth 
Avatar  descends. 

H.  What  form  does  it  take  ? 

I.  No  form  at  all.  Do  not  ask  me  now  any  of 
your  miserable  mathematical  questions.  It  is  only 
that  something  is  going  to  happen. 

H.  That  is  enough.     I  am  convinced. 

I.  I  know  that  nothing  ever  does  happen,  but 
all  the  same  I  am  filled  with  a  vague  expectation, 
—  the  foretaste  of  coming  bliss.  Do  not  laugh. 
Heaven  opens  in  the  summer-time.  Her  sun 
shine  is  the  shadow  of  the  angels.  Every  power 
feels  the  thrill  of  its  coming  development.  Every 
need  hears  through  the  still  air  the  far,  faint  music 
of  its  answering  wealth.  The  wildest  dream  finds 
dear  fulfilment.  Nothing  is  too  high  to  be  hoped 
for,  too  sweet  to  be  believed. 

O,  let  me  tell  you  "the  ideal  life  which  Summer 
paints  on  her  lilies  and  roses  — 

And  we  talked  on  through  the  pulsing  hours  of 
what  you  perhaps  would  not  care  to  hear,  nor  I 
to  report,  till  the  miller's  horn  rung  sonorous 
through  the  woods,  —  preconcerted  signal  of  his 
completed  work ;  in  obedience  to  which  we  gath 
ered  our  goods  and  chattels  and  returned  home 
ward,  no  less  slowly,  a  little  more  silent,  no 
more  sad,  under  the  lengthening  shadows  of  the 
afternoon. 


KING  JAMES   THE   FIRST. 

WAS  determined  no  longer  to  resort 
to  a  course  of  humiliating  strategy,  not 
to  say  trickery.  So  the  next  time  I 
had  something  to  say,  I  waited  till 
there  came  a  rainy  day.  Then  stealthily  watch 
ing  the  movements  of  my  victim,  I  saw  him  enter 
his  lair  for  the  purpose,  as  he  informed  me,  of 
tracing  a  quotation  to  Aristophanes  or  Helioga- 
balus,  or  some  of  those  old  masters.  He  was  very 
sure  it  was  there,  but  it  had  hitherto  eluded  him. 
He  should  find  it  now  if  it  took  him  all  day,  since 
it  was  rainy,  and  he  had  nothing  in  particular  on 
hand.  Fatal  admission  !  Did  he  see  the  eyes  of 
the  wild  beast  in  me  flash  exultation?  "Quern 
Deus  vult  perdere"  and  so  forth ;  but  I  held  my 
peace  till  he  should  have  become  thoroughly  ab 
sorbed  in  his  pursuit,  and  off  his  guard.  Then 
I  advanced.  So-ho !  There  lay  my  fine  gentle 
man  and  scholar,  stretched  on  his  lounge  fast 
asleep.  Research  indeed !  The  fact  is,  I  am  be 
coming  sceptical  as  to  the  quantity  and  quality 
of  masculine  scholarship.  The  popular  belief, 


256  SUMMER  REST. 

which  I  have  hitherto  shared,  is,  that  men  who 
have  been  through  college,  with  all  its  antece 
dents  and  consequents,  can 

"  speak  Greek 

As  naturally  as  pigs  squeak ; 
That  Latin  is  no  more  difficile 
Than  to  a  blackbird  't  is  to  whistle  "  ; 

but  I  find  that  men  who  have  graduated  with  all 
the  honors  fight  shy  of  Greek,  and  have  no  in 
ordinate  passion  for  Latin,  preferring  their  own 
tongue  wherein  they  were  born  as  decidedly  as 
we  unlearned  rabble.  Even  Atalanta  in  Calydon, 
the  work  of  that  wondrous  man,  if  indeed  he  be 
a  man,  who  not  only  reads  Greek,  but  writes  it, 
and  not  only  writes  it,  but  writes  verses  in  it,  — 
even  Atalanta,  I  find,  is  not  very  easily  imposed 
upon  an  intelligent  community.  "  Any  new  books 
lately  ?  "  says  my  friend  the  Secretary. 

"  Yes,"  I  answered,  blandly,  " '  Atalanta  in 
Calydon  '  has  just  come  in." 

"FAo?" 

"  '  Atalanta  in  Calydon,'  a  Greek  tragedy." 

"Don't  want  it." 

"  It  is  not  written  in  Greek.  It  is  only  mod 
elled  upon  the  Greek,  I  suppose.  It  gives  Greek 
life  and  thought.  It  is  really  very  —  " 

"Don't  want  it." 

My  friend,  the  Judge,  is  recovering  from  an 
illness.  I  meet  his  wife  in  an  unfrequented  street, 
and  proffer  Atalanta,  sugar-coated  with  various 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  257 

toothsome  authors.  She  declares  (with  a  misgiv 
ing  which  she  cannot  conceal  from  me)  that  the 
Judge  will  be  delighted.  I  promise  to  send  the 
books  betimes  next  morning ;  but  an  early  bird 
hops  up  on  the  door-step,  and  chirps  out,  "Papa 
says  he  is  much  obliged  for  the  books,  but  he 
does  n't  care  for  the  Greek." 

Happy  they  who  are  content  to  know  nothing. 
To  hum  and  hover  in  the  sunshine  over  broad  fields 
of  learning,  gathering  only  honey-dew  from  the 
cups  of  the  sweetest  flowers,  —  it  is  hardly  worth 
the  name  of  study,  but  it  is  wondrous  pleasant. 
If  Queen  Caroline  finds  entertainment  before 
breakfast  in  Butler's  Analogy,  by  all  means  let 
her  eat  the  fat  and  drink  the  sweet  of  it  to  her 
heart's  content.  If  people  like  to  calculate  eclipses, 
it  is  an  innocent  amusement ;  let  none  gainsay  or 
resist  them.  It  would  be  very  mortifying  if  none 
of  us  knew  anything  about  it,  and  we  had  to  go 
to  England  for  our  Almanacs.  But  as  for  turning 
Bishop  Butler,  or  sines  and  cosines,  into  moral 
duty,  after  one  has  left  school,  and  bruising  one's 
spirit  over  them,  I  never  could  see  that  it  was 
desirable.  Augite  and  andesite,  diorite  and  do- 
lerite,  give  an  uncertain  sound.  Glauber  salts  are 
but  indifferent  welcome,  even  when  decked  out 
with  the  honorary  titles  of  Na  O  SO3  +  10  HO. 
The  stars  shine  scarcely  more  serene  for  knowing 
their  altitude  and  azimuth ;  but  when  Geology, 
from  her  primeval  rocks,  gropes  back  into  the 

Q 


258  SUMMER  REST. 

twilight  of  the  dawn,  or  reaches  down  into  the 
underworld  to  set  the  whole  earth  aglow ;  when 
Chemistry  leaves  her  alphabet  to  swathe  the  sun 
in  robes  of  fire,  to  feed  him  with  endless  streams 
of  meteors,  and  give  him  a  universe  to  work  his 
magic  in ;  when  Astronomy  lays  down  her  math 
ematics  and  takes  up  her  pencil  of  light,  to  paint 
the  belts  of  Jupiter  and  the  rings  of  Saturn,  piles 
up  her  mountains  and  scoops  out  her  valleys  in 
the  moon,  peoples  space  with  suns  and  suns  with 
souls,  and,  sweeping  world  around  world  and  gath 
ering  circle  upon  circle,  binds  them  fast  in  one 
radiant  zone  of  life  around  the  central  orb,  till 

"  Every  sphere  can,  swinging,  hear 
The  ripples  of  our  atmosphere, 
The  growing  circles  of  our  prayer ; 
Circling  beyond  all  time,  all  place, 
And  breaking  with  its  finite  grace 
Upon  dim  shores  of  God's  illimitable  space," 

their  charm  commences.  You  see  how  it  is ;  as 
it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be, 
fools  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread.  Where 
science  leaves  the  solid  ground  of  fact,  and  spreads 
her  wings  for  fancy-flights,  where  knowledge  melts 
away  into  poetry,  and  induction  becomes  conjec 
ture,  all  hail,  science,  knowledge,  induction !  Go 
on,  wise  men.  Watch  out  the  night  with  your 
stars,  singe  your  eyebrows  with  the  fiery  breath 
of  the  genii  you  have  caught,  but  not  tamed,  in 
your  prison-jars,  hammer  up  the  rocks  steadfastly 
chip  by  chip,  till  you  have  broken  the  spirit  of 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  259 

their  secret.  We,  sitting  by  the  ingle-side  on 
winter  evenings,  or  resting  under  the  cool  shadows 
of  the  summer-time,  enter  into  your  reward.  All 
your  weary  work  makes  pleasant  paths  for  us. 
We  are  not  in  love  with  your  processes,  but  we 
have  a  warm  glow  of  greeting  for  your  results. 

You  are  doubtless  disgusted,  Messrs.  Magi,  and 
perhaps  not  without  reason.  I  am  ready  to  confess 
that,  if  you  look  at  it  as  learning,  it  is,  like  my 
friend's  silver,  all  sham,  but  if  you  look  at  it  as  life, 
it  is,  like  my  friend  herself,  all  sincerity.  And 
after  all,  is  not  life  better  than  learning  ?  When 
you  will  tell  what  good  your  science  does  you,  if 
it  does  not  make  you  happy,  of  what  advantage 
it  is  to  you  to  unlock  the  treasures  of  antiquity, 
if  to  you  those  treasures  are  mere  rubbish,  what 
boots  it  with  incessant  care  strictly  to  meditate 
a  thankless  muse,  then  it  will  be  time  enough  to 
reconsider.  Meanwhile  I  do  but  copy  yourselves. 
You  do  not,  as  a  general  thing,  take  all  knowledge 
to  be  your  province,  and  if  you  do,  you  enter  into 
possession  of  but  a  very  small  part  of  it.  You 
select  from  the  Universe  your  specialty,  and  I 
select  from  your  selection  mine.  You  skim  the 
cream  of  thought,  and  I  the  creme  de  la  creme, 
and  we  are  both  suited,  with  only  this  difference, 
that  you  have  the  name  of  savant  and  I  the  name 
of  smatterer.  All  well  so  long  as  we  wear  our 
honors  smilingly,  —  though  it  is  pleasant  now 
and  then  to  strut  in  stolen  plumes.  And  Web- 


260  SUMMER  REST. 

ster's  Dictionary  is  such  a  royal  road  to  fame ! 
Thither  flock  from  every  quarter  the  choice 
phrases  of  dead  and  living  tongues,  and  whoso 
ever  will  may  garnish  his  speech  with  store  of 
polyglotic  mysteries,  which  shall  speak  to  the  un 
initiated  of  boundless  wealth  in  reserve.  And 
surely,  to  elicit  the  admiration,  the  envy,  and 
the  wrath  of  the  ignohle  crowd  who  do  not  own 
the  great  Unabridged,  and  who  cannot  therefore 
understand  your  foreign  lingo,  is  a  pleasure  not 
to  be  lightly  esteemed  or  foregone. 

But  all  I  meant  to  say,  —  though  you  will  never 
believe  it,  seeing  I  have  said  so  much, —  was,  that, 
not  pretending  to  know  anything,  and  never  hav 
ing  been  in  a  situation  from  which  it  would  be 
expected  that  I  should  know  anything,  I  am  not 
obliged  to  keep  up  appearances,  and  can  afford  to 
like  Atalanta.  It  does  not  in  the  least  trouble  me 
that  I  do  not  always  know  what  Althaea,  and  Cho 
rus,  and  Meleager  are  talking  about.  The  rhyme, 
the  rhythm,  the  melodious  jingle,  do  not  depend 
upon  logical  sequences.  Why  be  distressed  to  un 
derstand  everything?  Why  rave  against  a  beau 
tiful,  fruitful  darkness  star-sown  with  splendor  ? 
That  is  one  thing  to  like  the  book  for,  —  because 
it  is  not  to  be  understood ;  because  it  is  far,  and 
strange,  and  ideal ;  because  you  can  read  at  it 
forever. 

Some  psychical  influence  conveyed  my  mood 
to  the  soul  of  my  Sleeping  Beauty.  Wandering 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  261 

in  his  distant  dream-land,  he  became  evidently 
conscious  that  trouble  was  brewing  at  home, 
threatening  his  supremacy.  An  appalling  sight 
meets  his  opening  eyes.  It  is  I  and  my  manu 
script.  There  is  no  escape  through  the  rain,  and 
then  that  fatal  confession  of  leisure  I  His  doom 
settles  down  upon  him. 

"  Here  I  am,"  I  cry,  smiling  sweetly,  "  like 
Christian  with  his  precious  roll." 

"And  here  Jam,"  he  growls  and  scowls,  "like 
Christian  with  his  grievous  burden." 

I  make  no  parley,  but  advance  at  once  into  the 
middle  of  things  by  unfolding  my  manuscript. 

"  What  is  it  all  about  ?  "  he  at  length  asks. 

"  It  is  a  historical  piece." 

He  stares  at  me.  "  My  dear,  this  is  madness  ! 
Sheer  midsummer  madness !  You  know  nothing 

O 

about  history." 

I.  Don't  I  ?  History  is  philosophy,  teaching 
by  example,  and  always  repeats  itself.  Christo 
pher  Columbus,  a  native  of  Genoa  — 

H.  You  know  a  few  bald  facts  that  have  been 
sifted  out  and  set  before  you ;  but  for  anything 
like  independent  investigation  — 

I.  This,  perhaps,  is  more  in  the  nature  of  biog 
raphy.  It  is  a  kind  of  personal  history. 

H.  What  person  ? 

I.  I  have  called  it  King  James  the  First. 

H.  Have  you  found  any  sources  of  information 
that  escaped  the  eyes  of  Macaulay  and  — 


262  SUMMER  REST. 

I.  Yes,  Halicarnassus,  I  have.     I  think  I  know 

a  good  deal  more  about  this  matter  than  Macaulay. 

If.  Go  on.    Read.    Least  said,  soonest  mended. 

KING  JAMES  THE   FIRST. 

A  merry  monarch  two  years  and  four  months 
old  — 

If.  O,  that  is  it,  is  it  ?     History  in  petticoats. 

I.  Don't  interrupt.  Now  I  shall  have  to  be 
gin  all  over  again.  The  beauty  of  the  paper  de 
pends  upon  its  unity  and  continuity.  You  know 
that  I  always  listen  to  your  remarks  with  resigna 
tion  if  not  with  pleasure,  as  it  is  my  duty  to  do. 
But  I  particularly  dislike  to  be  interrupted. 

KING   JAMES   THE   FIRST. 

A  merry  monarch  two  years  and  four  months 
old. 

If  we  could  have  stood  by  when  the  world 
was  a-making,  —  could  have  sniffed  the  escaping 
gases,  as  they  volatilized  through  the  air,  —  could 
have  seen  and  heard  the  swash  of  the  waves, 
when  the  whole  world  was,  so  to  speak,  in  hot 
water,  —  could  have  watched  the  fiery  tumult 
gradually  soothing  itself  into  shapely,  stately  palms 
and  ferns,  cold-blooded  Pterodactyles,  and  gigan 
tic,  but  gentle  Megatheriums,  till  it  was  refined, 
at  length,  into  sunshine  and  lilies  and  Robin 
Redbreasts,  —  we  fancy  we  should  have  been  in- 


KING  JAMES    THE  FIRST.  263 

tensely  interested.  But  a  human  soul  is  a  more 
mysterious  thing  than  this  round  world.  Its 
principles  firmer  than  the  hills,  its  passions  more 
tumultuous  than  the  sea,  its  purity  resplendent 
as  the  light,  its  power  too  swift  and  subtile  for 
human  analysis,  —  what  wonder  in  heaven  above 
or  earth  beneath  can  rival  this  mystic,  mighty 
mechanism  ?  Yet  it  is  formed  almost  under  our 
eyes.  The  voice  of  God,  "  Let  there  be  light," 
we  do  not  hear ;  the  stir  of  matter  thrilled  into 
mind  we  do  not  see;  but  the  after-march  goes 
on  before  our  gaze.  We  have  only  to  look,  and, 
lo  !  the  mountains  are  slowly  rising,  the  valleys 
scoop  their  levels,  the  sea  heaves  against  its  bar 
riers,  and  the  chaotic  soul  evolves  itself  from  its 
nebulous,  quivering  light,  from  its  plastic  softness, 
into  a  world  of  repose,  of  use,  of  symmetry,  and 
stability.  This  mysterious  soul,  when  it  first 
passed  within  our  vision,  was  only  not  hidden 
within  its  mass  of  fleshly  life,  a  seed  of  spirituality 
deep-sunk  in  a  pulp  of  earthliness.  Passing  away 
from  us  in  ripened  perfection,  we  behold  a  being 
but  little  lower  than  the  angels,  heir  of  God  and 
joint  heir  with  Christ,  crowned  with  glory  and 
honor  and  immortality. 

Come  up,  then,  Jamie,  my  King,  into  the  pres 
ence  of  the  great  congregation !  There  are  poets 
here,  and  philosophers,  wise  men  of  the  East  who 
can  speak  of  trees,  from  the  cedar-tree  that  is  in 
Lebanon,  even  unto  the  hyssop  that  springeth  out 


264  SUMMER  REST. 

of  the  wall :  also  of  beasts,  and  of  fowl,  and  of 
creeping  things,  and  of  fishes.  But  fear  them 
not,  little  Jamie !  you  are  of  more  value,  even  to 
science,  than  many  fishes.  Wise  as  these  Magi 
are,  yesterday  they  were  such  as  you,  and  such 
they  must  become  again  or  ever  they  shall  enter 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Come  up,  little  Jamie, 
into  the  hall  of  audience !  Blue  eyes  and  broad 
brow,  sunny  curls,  red  lips,  and  dainty,  sharp 
teeth,  stout  little  arm,  strong  little  hand,  sturdy 
little  figure,  and  most  still  and  steadfast  gaze : 
truly  it  is  the  face  and  form  of  a  king,  —  sweet 
ness  in  power,  unconsciousness  in  royalty. 

"  Jamie,  you  are  a  little  beauty  !  You  are  too 
handsome  to  live  !  " 

"  No  !  "  says  Jamie,  vehemently,  for  the  fiftieth 
time,  stamping  the  royal  foot  and  scowling  the 
royal  brows.  "  Gamma  say  not  too  ha'some  !  " 

"  But  you  are  a  young  Apollo." 

"  No  my  'Polio  !  " 

"  What  are  you,  then  ?  " 

"  I  goo  e  baw,"  which  is  Jametic  for  good  little 
boy. 

This  microcosm,  like  the  macrocosm,  may  be 
divided  into  many  departments.  As  the  world 
is  viewed  geographically,  geologically,  historically, 
astronomically,  so  in  this  one  little  Jamie  we  have 
many  Jamies.  There  is  the  Jamie  philological, 
Jamie  theological,  Jamie  psychological,  Jamie  emo 
tional,  Jamie  social  ;  in  fact,  I  can  hardly  think  of 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  265 

any  natural,  moral,  or  mathematical  science,  on 
which  a  careful  study  of  Jamie  will  not  throw 
some  light.  Would  you  frame  a  theory  of  meta 
physics  ?  Consult  Reid,  and  Locke,  and  Hamil 
ton  warily,  for  they  are  men,  subject  to  like 
mistakes  as  we  are ;  but  observe  Jamie  with  ut 
most  confidence  and  the  closest  care,  for  he  is 
the  book  of  God,  and  will  teach  only  truth,  if 
your  eye  is  single  to  perceive  truth.  Theologi 
cally,  Jamie  has  points  superior  to  both  Andover 
and  Princeton  ;  he  is  never  in  danger  of  teaching 
for  doctrine  the  commandments  of  men  ;  nor  have 
passion  and  prejudice  in  him  any  power  to  conceal, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  they  illuminate  truth.  For 
the  laws  of  language,  mark  how  the  noble  tree 
of  human  speech  springs  in  his  soul  from  mustard- 
seed  into  fair  and  fruitful  symmetry.  In  good 
sooth,  one  marvels  that  there  should  be  so  much 
error  in  the  world  with  children  born  and  growing 
up  all  over  it.  If  Jamie  were,  like  Jean  Paul, 
the  Only,  I  should  expect  philosophers  to  journey 
from  remotest  regions  to  sit  at  his  feet  and  learn 
the  ways  of  God  to  man.  Every  one  who  pre 
sumed  to  teach  his  fellows  should  be  called  upon 
to  produce  his  diploma  as  a  graduate  of  Jamie, 
or  forfeit  all  confidence  in  his  sagacity.  But,  with 
a  baby  in  every  other  house,  how  is  it  that  we 
continually  fall  out  by  the  way  ?  It  must  be  that 
children  are  not  advantageously  used.  We  pet 
them,  and  drug  them,  and  spoil  them  ;  we  trick 
12 


266  SUMMER  REST. 

them  out  in  silks  and  fine  array  ;  we  cross  and 
thwart  and  irritate  them  ;  we  lay  unholy  hands 
upon  them,  but  are  seldom  content  to  stand  aside 
and  see  the  salvation  of  the  Lord. 

Tug,  tug,  tug,  one  little  foot  wearisomely  rang 
ing  itself  beside  the  other,  and  two  hands  helping 
both :  that  is  Jamie  coming  up  stairs.  Patter, 
patter,  patter :  that  is  Jamie  trotting  through  the 
entry.  He  never  walks.  Rattle,  clatter,  shake  : 
Jamie  is  opening  the  door.  Now  he  marches  in. 
Flushed  with  exertion,  and  exultant  over  his  bril 
liant  escapade  from  the  odious  surveillance  below, 
he  presents  himself  peering  on  tiptoe  just  over 
the  arm  of  the  big  chair,  and  announces  his 
errand,  — 

"  Come  t'  see  Baddy." 

"  Baddy  does  n't  want  you." 

"  Baddy  do." 

Then,  in  no  wise  daunted  by  his  cool  welcome, 
he  works  his  way  up  into  the  big  chair  with  much 
and  indiscriminate  pulling  :  if  it  is  a  sleeve,  if  it 
is  a  curtain,  if  it  is  a  table-cloth  whereon  repose 
many  pens,  much  ink  and  paper,  and  knick- 
knacks  without  number,  nothing  heeds  he,  but 
clutches  desperately  at  anything  which  will  help 
him  mount,  and  so  he  comes  grunting  in,  all 
tumbled  and  twisted,  crowds  down  beside  me, 
and  screws  himself  round  to  face  the  table,  pok 
ing  his  knees  and  feet  into  me  with  serene  un 
concern.  Then,  with  a  pleased  smile  lighting  up 


KINO  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  267 

his  whole  face,  he  devotes  himself  to  literature. 
A  small,  trass-lined  cavity  in  the  frame  of  the 
writing-desk  serves  him  for  an  inkstand.  Into 
that  he  dips  an  old,  worn-out  pen  with  conse 
quential  air,  and  assiduously  traces  nothing  on  bits 
of  paper.  Of  course  I  am  reduced  to  a  masterly 
inactivity,  with  him  wriggling  against  my  right 
arm,  let  alone  the  danger  hanging  over  all  my 
goods  and  chattels  from  this  lawless  little  Vandal 
prowling  among  them.  Shall  I  send  him  away  ? 
Yes,  if  I  am  an  insensate  clod,  clean  given  over 
to  stupidity  and  selfishness  ;  if  I  count  substance 
nothing,  and  shadow  all  things ;  if  I  am  content 
to  dwell  with  frivolities  forever,  and  have  for 
eternal  mysteries  nothing  but  neglect.  For  sup 
pose  I  break  in  upon  his  short-lived  delight,  thrust 
him  out  grieved  and  disappointed,  with  his  brave 
brow  clouded,  a  mist  in  his.  blue  eyes,  and  —  that 
heart-rending  sight  —  his  dear  little  under-lip  and 
chin  all  quivering  and  puckering.  Well,  I  go  back 
and  write  an  epic  poem.  The  printers  mangle  it ; 
the  critics  fall  foul  of  it ;  it  is  lost  in  going  through 
the  post-office  ;  it  brings  me  ten  letters,  asking 
an  autograph,  on  six  of  which  I  have  to  pay 
postage.  There  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit, 
besides  eighteen  cents  out  of  pocket,  and  the 
children  crying  for  bread.  I  let  him  stay.  A 
little,  innocent  life,  fearfully  dependent  on  others 
for  light,  shines  out  with  joyful  radiance,  wherein 
I  rejoice.  To-morrow  he  will  have  the  measles, 


268  SUMMER  REST. 

and  the  mumps,  and  the  croup,  and  the  whooping- 
cough,  and  scarlatina ;  and  then  come  the  alpha 
bet,  and  Latin  grammar,  and  politics,  and  his  own 
boys  getting  into  trouble :  but  to-day,  when  his 
happiness  is  in  my  hands,  I  may  secure  it,  and 
never  can  any  one  wrest  from  him  the  sunshine 
I  may  pour  into  his  happy  little  heart.  O,  the 
time  comes  so  soon,  and  comes  so  often,  that  Love 
can  only  look  with  bitter  sorrow  upon  the  sorrow 
which  it  has  no  power  to  mitigate ! 

Language  is  unceremoniously  resolved  into  its 
original  elements  by  Jamie.  He  is  constitution 
ally  opposed  to  inflection,  which,  as  he  must  be 
devoid  of  prejudice,  may  be  considered  indispu 
table  proof  of  the  native  superiority  of  the  English 
to  other  languages.  He  is  careful  to  include  in 
his  sentences  all  the  important  words,  but  he  has 
small  respect  for  particles,  and  the  disposition  of 
his  words  waits  entirely  upon  his  moods.  My  usu 
ally  does  duty  for  I.  "  Want  that  Uncle  Frank 
gave  me  hossey,"  with  a  finger  pointing  to  the 
mantel-piece,  is  just  as  flexible  to  his  use  as  "  Want 
the  hossey  that  Uncle  Frank  gave  me."  "  Where 
Baddy  can  be  ? "  he  murmurs  softly  to  himself, 
while  peering  behind  doors  and  sofas  in  playing 
hide-and-seek.  Hens  are  cud-dah,  a  flagrant  ex 
ample  of  Onomatopoeia.  The' cradle  is  a  cay-go; 
corn-balls  are  ball-corn  ;  snow-bird,  bird-snow ; 
and  all  his  rosy  nails  are  toe-nails.  He  has  been 
drilled  into  meet  response  to  "How  d'  ye  do?"  but 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  2G9 

demonstrates  the  mechanical  character  of  his  reply 
by  responding  to  any  question  that  has  the  you  and 
how  sounds  in  it,  as,  "  What  do  you  think  of 
that  ?  "  "  How  did  you  do  it  ?  "  "  How  came 
you  by  this  ?  "  "  Pit-tee  well." 

But  his  performances  are  not  all  mechanical. 
He  has  a  stock  of  poetry  and  orations,  of  which  he 
delivers  himself  at  bedtime  with  a  degree  of  resig 
nation,  —  that  being  the  only  hour  in  which  he 
can  be  reduced  to  sufficient  quietude  for  recita 
tion  ;  nor  is  that  because  he  loves  quiet  more,  but 
bed  less.  It  is  a  very  grievous  misfortune,  an  un 
reasonable  and  arbitrary  requisition,  that  breaks  in 
upon  his  busy  life,  interrupts  him  in  the  midst  of 
driving  to  mill  on  an  inverted  chair,  hauling  wood 
in  a  ditto  footstool,  and  other  important  matters, 
and  sweeps  him  off  to  darkness  and  silence.  So, 
with  night-gown  on,  and  the  odious  bed  imminent, 
he  puts  off  the  evil  day  by  compounding  with 
the  authorities  and  giving  a  public  entertainment, 
in  consideration  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  delay. 
He  takes  large  liberties  with  the  text  of  his  poems, 
but  his  rhetorical  variations  are  of  a  nature  that 
shows  it  is  no  vain  repetition,  but  that  he  enters 
into  the  spirit  of  the  poem.  In  one  of  his  songs 
a  person 

"  Asked  a  sweet  robin,  one  morning  in  May, 
That  sung  in  the  apple-tree  over  the  way," 

what  it  was  he  was  singing. 

"  Don't  you  know  ?  he  replied,  you  cannot  guess  wrong ; 
Don't  you  know  I  am  singing  my  cold-water  song  ?  " 


270  SUMMER  REST. 

This  Jamie  intensifies  thus, — 

"  Do'  know  my  sing  my  co'-wotta  song,  hm  1 " 
When  he  reaches  the  place  where 

"  Jack  fell  down 
Boke  cown," 

he  invariably  leaves  Gill  to  take  care  of  herself, 
and  closes  with  the  pathetic  moral  reflection,  "  'At 
too  bad  !  "  Little  Jack  Horner,  having  put  in  his 
thumb  and  picked  out  a  plum,  is  made  to  declare 
definitely  and  redundantly,  — 

"  My  ga-ate  big  boy,  jus'  so  big ! " 

He  persists  in  praying,  — 

"  'F  I  should  die  'fore  I  wake  up." 

Borne  off  to  bed  at  last,  in  spite  of  every  pretext 
for  delay,  tired  Nature  droops  in  the  "fringed 
curtains "  of  his  eyes,  and  gapes  protractedly 
through  his  wide-dividing  lips. 

"  I  seepy,"  he  cries,  fighting  off  sleep  with  the 
bravery  of  a  major-general,  —  observing  phenom 
ena,  in  articulo  somni,  with  the  accuracy  and  en 
thusiasm  of  a  naturalist,  and  reasoning  from  them 
with  the  skill  of  a  born  logician. 

A  second  prolonged  and  hearty  gape,  and 

"  I  two  seepies,"  he  cries,  adding  mathematics 
to  his  other  accomplishments. 

And  that  is  the  last  of  Jamie,  till  the  early 
morning  brings  him  trudging  up  stairs,  all  curled 
and  shining,  to  "  hear  Baddy  say  c  Boo  ! ' ' 

Total  depravity,  in  Jamie's  presence,  is  a  doc- 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  271 

trine  hard  to  be  understood.  Honestly  speaking, 
he  does  not  appear  to  have  any  more  depravity 
than  is  good  for  him,  — just  enough  to  make  him 
piquant,  to  give  him  a  relish.  He  is  healthy  and 
hearty  all  day  long.  He  eats  no  luncheon  and 
takes  no  nap,  is  desperately  hungry  thrice  a  day 
and  sleeps  all  night,  going  to  bed  at  dark  after  a 
solitary  supper  of  bread  and  butter,  more  espe 
cially  bread ;  and  he  is  good  and  happy.  Laying 
aside  the  revelations  of  the  Bible  and  of  Doc 
tors  of  Divinity,  I  should  say  that  his  nature  is 
honest,  simple,  healthful,  pure,  and  good.  He 
shows  no  love  for  wrong,  no  inclination  towards 
evil  rather  than  good.  He  is  affectionate,  just 
generous,  and  truthful.  He  just  lives  on  his  sin 
cere,  fun-loving,  playful,  yet  earnest  life,  from 
day  to  day,  a  pure  and  perfect  example,  to  my 
eye,  of  what  God  meant  children  to  be.  I  can 
not  see  how  he  should  be  very  different  from 
what  he  is,  even  if  he  were  in  heaven,  or  if  Adam 
had  never  sinned.  There  is  so  fearful  an  amount 
of,  and  so  decided  a  bent  towards,  wickedness  in 
the  world,  that  it  seems  as  if  nothing  less  than  an 
inborn  aptitude  for  wickedness  can  account  for  it ; 
yet,  in  spite  of  all  theories  and  probabilities,  here 
is  Jamie,  right  under  my  own  eye,  developing  a 
far  stronger  tendency  to  love,  kindness,  sympa 
thy,  and  all  the  innocent  and  benevolent  qualities, 
than  to  their  opposites.  The  wrong  that  he  does 
seems  to  be  more  from  fun  and  frolic,  from  sheer 


272  SUMMER  REST. 

exuberance  of  animal  spirits  and  intensity  of 
mirthfulness,  than  anything  else.  He  seems  to 
be  utterly  devoid  of  malice,  cruelty,  revenge,  or 
any  evil  motive.  Even  selfishness,  which  I  take  to 
be  the  fruitful  mother  of  evil,  is -held  in  abeyance, 
is  subordinate  to  other  and  nobler  qualities.  Candy 
is  dearer  to  him  than  he  knows  how  to  express  ; 
yet  he  scrupulously  lays  a  piece  on  the  mantel  for 
an  absent  friend  ;  and  though  he  has  it  in  full 
view,  and  climbs  up  to  it,  and  in  the  extremity  of 
his  longing  has  been  known,  I  think,  to  chip  off 
the  least  little  bit  with  his  sharp  mouse-teeth,  yet 
he  endures  to  the  end  and  delivers  up  the  candy 
with  an  eagerness  hardly  surpassed  by  that  with 
which  he  originally  received  it.  Can  self-denial 
go  further? 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  reason  of  Jamie's  gentle- 

O 

ness  and  cheerfulness  and  goodness  is,  that  he  is 
comfortable  and  happy.  The  animal  is  in  fine 
condition,  and  the  spirit  is  therefore  well  served  ; 
consequently,  both  go  on  together  with  little  fric 
tion.  And  I  cannot  but  suspect  that  a  great  deal 
of  human  depravity  comes  from  human  misery. 
The  destruction  of  the  poor  is  his  poverty.  Little 
sickly,  fretful,  crying  babies,  heirs  of  worn  nerves, 
fierce  tempers,  sad  hearts,  sordid  tastes,  half-tended 
or  over-tended,  fed  on  poison  by  the  hand  of  love, 
nay,  sucking  poison  from  the  breasts  of  love,  trained 
to  insubordination,  abused  by  kindness,  abused  by 
cruelty,  —  that  is  the  human  nature  from  which 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  273 

largely  we  generalize,  and  no  wonder  the  inference 
is  total  depravity.  But  human  nature,  distorted, 
defiled,  degraded  by  centuries  of  misdealing,  is 
scarcely  human  nature.  Let  us  discover  it  before 
we  define  it.  Let  us  remove  accretions  of  long 
standing  moral  and  physical  disease,  before  we  pro 
nounce  sentence  against  the  human  nature.  Let 
it  become  an  established  and  universally  recog 
nized  principle,  as  fixed  and  unquestionable  as 
the  right  and  wrong  of  theft  and  murder,  that  it  is 
a  sin  against  God,  a  crime  against  the  state,  an 
outrage  upon  the  helpless  victim  of  their  ignorance 
or  wickedness,  for  an  unhealthy  man  or  woman  to 
become  the  parent  of  a  child,  and  I  think  our 
creeds  would  presently  undergo  modification.  Dis 
ease  seems  to  me  a  more  fertile  source  of  evil  than 
depravity ;  at  least  it  is  a  more  tangible  source. 
We  must  have  a  race  of  healthy  children,  before 
we  know  what  are  the  true  characteristics  of  the 
human  race.  A  child  suffering  from  scrofula  gives 
but  a  feeble,  even  a  false  representation  of  the 
grace,  beauty,  and  sweetness  of  childhood.  Pain, 
sickness,  lassitude,  deformity,  a  suffering  life,  a  lin 
gering  death,  are  among  the  woful  fruits  of  this 
dire  disease,  and  it  is  acknowledged  to  be  heredi 
tary.  Is  not,  then,  every  person  afflicted  with 
hereditary  disease  debarred  as  by  a  fiat  of  the 
Almighty  from  becoming  a  parent  ?  Every  prin 
ciple  of  honor  forbids  it.  The  popular  stolidity 
and  blindness  on  these  subjects  are  astonishing.  A 

12*  H 


274  SUMMER  REST. 

young  woman  whose  sisters  have  all  died  of  con 
sumption,  and  who  herself  exhibits  unmistakable 
consumptive  tendencies,  is  married,  lives  to  bear 
three  children  in  quick  succession,  and  dies  of  con 
sumption.  Her  friends  mourn  her  and  the  sad 
separation  from  her  bereaved  little  ones,  but  con 
sole  themselves  with  the  reflection  that  these  little 
ones  have  prolonged  her  life.  But  for  her  mar 
riage,  she  would  have  died  years  before.  Of  the 
three  children  born  of  this  remedial  marriage,  two 
die  in  early  girlhood  of  consumption.  One  left, 
a  puny  infant,  languishes  into  a  puny  maturity. 
Even  as  a  remedy,  what  is  this  worth?  To  die 
in  her  youth,  to  leave  her  suffering  body  in  the 
dust  and  go  quickly  to  God,  with  no  responsibility 
beyond  herself,  or  to  pine  through  six  years,  en 
during  thrice,  besides  all  her  inherited  debility, 
the  pain  and  peril,  the  weariness  and  terror  of 
child-bearing,  to  be  at  last  torn  violently  and  pre 
maturely  away  from  these  beloved  little  ones, — 
which  is  the  disease,  and  which  the  remedy?  And 
when  we  look  further  on  at  the  helpless  little  inno 
cents,  doomed  to  be  the  recipients  of  disease,  early 
deprived  of  a  mother's  care,  for  which  there  is  no 
substitute,  dragging  a  load  of  weakness  and  pain, 
and  forced  down  into  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
Death  before  years  shall  have  blunted  the  point  of 
its  terrors,  or  religion  robbed  them  of  their  sting, 
—  it  is  only  not  atrocious  because  so  unwittingly 
wrought. 


KIXG  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  275 

And  bodily  health  is  only  one  of  the  possessions 
which  every  child  has  a  right  to  claim  from  its 
parents.  Not  merely  health,  but  dispositions, 
traits,  lie  within  human  control  far  beyond  the 
extent  of  common  recognition.  We  say  that  char 
acter  is  formed  at  fourteen  or  sixteen,  and  that 
training  should  begin  in  infancy ;  but  sometimes 
it  seems  to  me,  that,  when  the  child  is  born,  the 
work  is  done.  All  the  rest  is  supplementary  and 
subordinate.  Subsequent  effort  has,  indeed,  much 
effect,  but  it  cannot  change  quality.  It  may 
modify,  but  it  cannot  make  anew.  After  neglect 
or  ignorance  may  blight  fair  promise,  but  no  after 
wisdom  can  bring  bloom  for  blight.  There  are 
many  by-laws  whose  workings  we  do  not  under 
stand  ;  but  the  great,  general  law  is  so  plain,  that 
wayfaring  folk,  though  fools,  need  not  err  therein. 
Ever  one  sees  the  unbridled  passions  of  the  father 
or  mother  raging  in  the  child.  Gentleness  is  born 

O        O 

of  gentleness,  insanity  of  insanity,  truth  of  truth. 
Careful  and  prayerful  training  may  mitigate  the 
innate  evil  ;  but  how  much  better  that  the  young 
life  should  have  sprung  to  light  from  seas  of  love 
and  purity  and  peace  !  Through  God's  mercy, 
the  harsh  temper,  the  miserly  craving,  the  fretful 
discontent  may  be  repressed  and  soothed  ;  but  it 
is  always  up  hill  work,  and  never  in  this  world 
wholly  successful.  Why  be  utterly  careless  in 
forming,  to  make  conscious  life  a  toilsome  and 
thankless  task  of  reforming?  Since  there  is  a 


276  SUMMER  REST. 

time,  and  there  comes  no  second,  when  the  human 
being  is  under  human  control,  —  since  the  tiny 
infant,  once  born,  is  a  separate  individual,  is  for 
all  its  remaining  existence  an  independent  human 
being,  why  not  bring  power  to  bear  where  form 
is  amenable  to  power?  Only  let  all  the  influ 
ences  of  that  sovereign  time  be  heavenly,  —  and 
whatever  may  be  true  of  total  depravity,  Christ 
has  made  such  a  thing  possible,  —  and  there  re 
mains  no  longer  the  bitter  toil  of  thwarting,  but 
only  the  pleasant  work  of  cultivating  Nature. 

It  is  idle,  and  worse  than  idle,  to  call  in  ques 
tion  the  providence  of  God  for  disaster  caused 
solely  by  the  improvidence  of  man.  The  origin 
of  evil  may  be  hidden  in  the  unfathomable  ob 
scurity  of  a  distant,  undreamed-of  past,  beyond 
the  scope  of  mortal  vision  ;  but  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  the  evil  that  we  see  —  which  is  the  only 
evil  for  which  we  are  responsible  —  is  the  result 
of  palpable  violation  of  Divine  laws.  Humanity 
here  is  as  powerful  as  Divinity.  The  age  of 
miracles  is  past.  God  does  not  interfere  to  con 
travene  His  own  laws.  His  part  in  man's  creation 
He  long  ago  denned,  and  delegates  all  the  rest  to 
the  souls  that  He  has  made.  Man  is  as  able  as 
God  to  check  the  destructive  tide.  And  it  is 
mere  shuffling  and  shirking  and  beating  the  wind, 
for  a  people  to  pray  God  to  mitigate  the  ill  which 
they  continually  and  unhesitatingly  perpetuate  and 
multiply. 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  277 

The  great  mistake  made  by  the  believers  in 
total  depravity  is  in  counting  the  blood  of  the 
covenant  of  little  worth.  We  admit  that  in  Adam 
all  die  ;  but  we  are  slow  to  believe  that  in  Christ 
all  can  be  made  alive.  We  abuse  the  doctrine. 
We  make  it  a  sort  of  scapegoat  for  shortcoming. 
But  Christ  has  made  Adamic  depravity  of  no 
account.  He  came  not  alone  to  pardon  sin,  but 
to  save  people  from  sinning.  Father-love,  mother- 
love,  and  Christ-love  are  so  mighty  that  together 
they  can  defy  Satan,  and,  in  his  despite,  the  soul 
shall  be  born  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  without 
first  passing  through  the  kingdom  of  hell.  And 
in  this  way  only,  I  think,  will  the  kingdoms  of 
this  world  become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and 
of  his  Christ. 

"  Now,  Jamie,  having  set  the  world  right,  — 
you  and  I,  for  which  the  world  will  be  deeply 
grateful,  —  let  us  see  what  you  are  about,  for 
you  have  been  suspiciously  still  lately.  What 
doing,  Jamie  ?  " 

"  Hay-puh !  "  says  Jamie,  very  red,  eager,  and 
absorbed,  with  no  intermission  of  labor. 

"  Making  hasty  pudding  !  "  O  yes  !  I  know 
what  that  means.  Only  taking  all  the  chips  and 
shavings  out  of  the  wood-box  in  the  closet  and 

o 

carrying  them  half  across  the  room  by  the  emi 
nently  safe  conveyance  of  his  two  fat  hands,  and 
emptying  them  into  my  box  of  paper,  and  stirring 


278  SUMMER  REST. 

all  together  with  a  curling-stick.  That  is  nothing. 
"  Keep  on,  Jamie,  and  amuse  yourself;  but  let  us 
hear  your  geography  lesson." 

"  Where  are  you  going  one  of  these  days  ?  " 

"  Min-nee-so-toh." 

«  Where  is  Minnesota  ?  " 

Jamie  gives  a  jerk  with  his  arm  to  the  west. 
He  evidently  thinks  Minnesota  is  just  beyond  the 
hill. 

"  Where  is  papa  going  to  buy  his  horses  ?  " 

"  Ill-noy." 

"  And  where  does  Aunt  Sarah  live  ?  " 

"  Cog-go." 

44  What  river  are  you  going  to  sail  up  to  get  to 
Minnesota  ?  " 

"  Miss-iss-ipp-ee." 

"  That 's  a  good  little  boy  !  He  knows  ever 
so  much  ;  and  here  is  a  peppermint.  Open  his 
mouth  and  shut  his  eyes,  and  pop  !  it  goes." 

There  is,  however,  a  pretty  picture  on  the 
other  side,  that  Jamie  thrusts  his  iconoclastic  fists 
through  quite  unconcernedly ;  and  that  is  the 
dignity  of  human  nature.  The  human  being  can 
be  trained  into  a  dignified  person  :  that  no  one 
denies.  Looking  at  some  honored  and  honorable 

O 

man  bearing  himself  loftily  through  every  crisis, 
and  wearing  his  grandeur  with  an  imperial  grace, 
one  may  be  pardoned  for  the  mistake,  but  it  is 
none  the  less  a  mistake,  of  reckoning  the  acquire 
ment  of  an  individual  as  the  endowment  of  the 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  279 

race.  Behold  human  nature  unclothed  upon  with 
the  arts  and  graces  of  the  schools,  if  you  would 
discover,  not  its  possibilities,  but  its  attributes. 
The  helplessness  of  infancy  appeals  to  all  that  is 
chivalric  and  Christian  in  our  hearts  ;  but  to 
dignity  it  is  pre-eminently  a  stranger.  A  charm 
ing  and  popular  writer  —  on  the  whole,  I  am  not 
sure  that  it  was  not  my  own  self — once  affirmed 
that  a  baby  is  a  beast,  and  gave  great  offence 
thereby  ;  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  no  unprejudiced 
person  can  observe  an  infant  of  tender  weeks 
sprawling  and  squirming  in  the  bath-tub,  and 
not  confess  that  it  looks  more  like  a  little  pink 
frog  than  anything  else.  And  here  is  Jamie,  not 
only  weeks,  but  months  and  years  old,  setting  his 
young  affections  on  candy  and  dinner,  and  eating 
in  general,  with  an  appalling  intensity.  It  is 
humiliating  to  see  how  easily  he  is  moved  by  an 
appeal  to  his  appetite.  I  blush  for  my  race,  re 
membering  the  sparkle  of  his  eyes  over  a  dainty 
dish,  and  the  intensity  of  his  devotion  to  it,  — 
the  enthusiasm  with  which  his  feet  spring,  and 
his  voice  rings  through  the  house,  to  announce 
the  fact,  "  Dinnah  mo'  weh-wy  !  dinnah  mo'  weh- 
wy ! "  To  the  naked  eye,  he  appears  to  think 
as  much  of  eating  as  a  cat  or  a  chicken  or  a  dog. 
Reasons  and  rights  he  is  slow  to  comprehend  ; 
but  his  conscience  is  always  open  to  conviction, 
and  his  will  pliable  to  a  higher  law,  when  a  stick 
of  candy  is  in  the  case.  His  bread-and-butter 


280  SUMMER  REST. 

is  to  him  what  science  was  to  Newton ;  and  he 
has  been  known  to  reply  abstractedly  to  a  ques 
tion  put  to  him  in  the  height  of  his  enjoyment, 
"  Don'  talk  t'  me  now !  "  This  is  not  dignity, 
surely.  Is  it  total  depravity?  What  is  it  that 
makes  his  feet  so  swift  to  do  mischief?  He  sweeps 
the  floor  with  the  table-brush,  comes  stumbling 
over  the  carpet  almost  chin-deep  in  a  pair  of 
muddy  rubber  boots,  catches  up  the  bird's  seed- 
cup  and  darts  away,  spilling  it  at  every  step ;  and 
the  louder  I  call,  the  faster  he  runs,  half  fright 
ened,  half  roguish,  till  an  unmistakable  sharpness 
pierces  him,  makes  him  throw  down  cup  and  seed 
together,  and  fling  himself  full  length  on  the  floor, 
his  little  heart  all  broken.  Indeed,  he  can  bear 
anything  but  displeasure.  He  tumbles  down 
twenty  times  a  day,  over  the  crickets,  off  the 
chairs,  under  the  table,  head  first,  head  last,  bump, 
bump,  bump,  and  never  a  tear  sheds  he,  though 
his  stern  self-control  is  sometimes  quite  pitiful  to 
see.  But  a  little  slap  on  his  cheek,  which  is  his 
standing  punishment,  —  not  a  blow,  but  a  tiny 
tap  that  must  derive  all  its  efficacy  from  its  moral 
force,  —  oh,  it  stabs  him  to  the  heart !  He  has 
no  power  to  bear  up  against  it,  and  goes  away  by 
himself,  and  cries,  bitterly,  sonorously,  and  towards 
the  last,  I  suspect,  rather  ostentatiously.  Then 
he  spoils  it  all  by  coming  out  radiant,  and  boasting 
that  he  has  "  make  tear,"  as  if  that  were  an 
unparalleled  feat.  If  you  attempt  to  chide  him, 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  281 

he  puts  up  his  plump  hand  with  a  repelling  ges 
ture,  turns  away  his  head  in  disgust,  and  ejacu 
lates  vehemently,  "  Don'  talk  t'  me  !  "  After  all, 
however,  I  do  not  perceive  that  he  is  any  more 
sensitive  to  reproof  than  an  intelligent  and  pet 
ted  dog. 

His  logical  faculty  develops  itself  somewhat  ca 
priciously,  but  is  very  prompt.  He  seldom  fails 
to  give  you  a  reason,  though  it  is  often  of  the 
Kilve  weathercock  type. 

"  Don'  talk  t'  me  !  I  little  Min-nee-so-toh  boy ! " 
—  as  if  that  were  an  amnesty  proclamation.  You 
invite  him  to  stay  with  you,  and  let  Papa  go  to 
Minnesota  without  him.  He  shakes  his  head 
dubiously,  and  protests,  with  solemn  earnestness, 
"  Mus'  go  Min-nee-so-toh  ca'y  my  fork,"  which,  to 
the  world-incrusted  mind,  seems  but  an  inadequate 
pretext.  I  want  him  to  write  me  a  letter  when  he 
is  gone  away ;  but  after  a  thoughtful  pause,  he  de 
cides  that  he  cannot,  "  'cause  I  got  no  pen."  If 
he  is  not  in  a  mood  to  repeat  the  verse  you  ask  for, 
he  finds  full  excuse  in  the  unblushing  declaration, 
"  I  bashful."  He  casts  shadows  on  the  wall  with 
his  wreathing,  awkward  little  fingers,  and  is  per 
fectly  satisfied  that  they  are  rabbits,  though  the 
mature  eye  discerns  no  resemblance  to  any  mem 
ber  of  the  vertebrate  family.  He  gazes  curiously 
to  see  me  laugh  at  something  I  am  reading, — 
"What 'at?  my  want  to  see," — and  climbs  up 
to  survey  the  page  with  wistful  eyes ;  but  it  is  "  a' 


282  SUMMER  REST. 

a  muddle  "  to  him.  He  greets  me  exultantly  after 
absence,  because  I  have  "  come  home  pay  coot 
with  Jamie";  and  there  is  another  secret  out: 
that  it  is  of  no  use  to  be  sentimental  with  a  child. 
He  loves  you  in  proportion  as  you  are  available. 
His  papa  and  mamma  fondly  imagine  they  are 
dearer  to  him  than  any  one  else,  and  it  would  be 
cruel  to  disturb  that  belief;  but  it  would  be  the 
height  of  folly  to  count  yourself  amiable  because 
Jamie  plants  himself  firmly  against  the  door,  and 
pleads  piteously,  "  Don'  go  in  e  parly  wite  !  "  He 
wants  you  to  "pay  coot"  with  him, — that  is  all. 
If  your  breakfast  shawl  is  lying  on  a  chair,  it 
would  not  be  sagacious  to  attribute  an  affectionate 
unselfishness  to  him  in  begging  leave  to  "  go  give 
Baddy  shawl  t'  keep  Baddy  back  warm."  It  is 
only  his  greediness  to  enter  forbidden  ground. 
Sentiment  and  sensibility  have  small  lodgement  in 
his  soul. 

But  when  Jamie  is  duly  forewarned,  he  is  fore 
armed.  Legally  admitted  into  the  parlor  to  see 
visitors  he  sits  on  the  sofa  by  his  mother's  side, 
silent,  upright,  prim,  his  little  legs  stuck  straight 
out  before  him  in  two  stiff  lines,  presenting  a  full 
front  view  of  his  soles.  By  the  way,  I  wonder 
how  long  grown  persons  would  sit  still,  if  they 
were  obliged  to  assume  this  position.  But  Jamie 
maintains  himself  heroically,  his  active  soul  sub 
dued  to  silence,  till  Nature  avenges  herself,  not 
merely  with  a  palpable,  but  a  portentous  yawn. 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  283 

"  You  may  force  me  to  this  unnatural  quiet,"  she 
seems  to  say  ;  "  but  if  you  expect  to  prevent  me 
from  testifying  that  I  think  it  intolerably  stupid, 
you  have  reckoned  without  your  host." 

And  here  Jamie  comes  out  strongly  in  favor  of 
democracy,  universal  suffrage,  political  equality,  the 
Union  and  the  Constitution,  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  the  rights  of  man.  Uncontami- 
nated  by  conventional  rules,  he  recognizes  the  hu 
man  being  apart  from  worldly  state.  He  is  as  si 
lent  and  abashed  in  the  presence  of  the  day -laborer, 
coarsely  clad  and  rough  of  .speech  and  manners  as 
in  that  of  the  accomplished  man  of  the  world,  or 
the  daintiest  silken-robed  lady.  With  simple  grav 
ity,  and  never  a  thought  of  wrong,  he  begs  the 
poet,  "  Pease,  Missa  Poet,  tie  up  my  shoe."  He 
stands  in  awe  before  the  dignity  of  the  human 
soul ;  but  dress,  and  rank,  and  reputation  receive 
no  homage  from  him.  He  is  reverent,  but  not  to 
false  gods.  The  world  finds  room  for  kingdoms 
and  empires  and  oligarchies ;  but  undoubtedly  man 
is  born  a  democrat. 

Is  there  only  one  Jamie  here  ?  Can  one  little 
urchin  about  as  high  as  the  table  so  fill  a  house 
with  mirth  and  mischief,  so  daguerreotype  himself 
in  every  corner,  possess,  while  claiming  nothing, 
so  large  a  share  of  the  household  interest  ?  For 
he  somehow  bubbles  up  everywhere.  Not  a  mis 
chance  or  a  misplacement  but  can  pretty  surely  be 
brought  home  to  him.  Is  a  glass  broken  ?  Jamie 


284  SUMMER  REST. 

broke  it.  Is  a  door  open  that  ought  to  be  shut? 
Jamie  opened  it.  Or  shut  that  ought  to  be  open  ? 
Jamie  shut  it.  Is  there  a  mighty  crash  in  the  en 
try?  It  is  Jamie  dropping  the  crowbar  through 
the  side-lights.  The  "  Atlantic  "  has  been  missing 
all  the  morning. 

"  Jamie,"  —  a  last,  random  resort,  after  fruitless 
search,  —  "  where  is  the  4  Atlantic  Monthly '  ?  " 

"  In  daw." 

"  In  the  drawer  ?  No,  it  is  not  in  the  drawer. 
You  don't  know  anything  about  it." 

Not  quite  so  fast.  Jamie  knows  the  "  Atlantic 
Monthly"  as  well  as  you;  and  if  you  will  open 
the  drawer  for  him,  he  will  rapidly  scatter  its  con 
tents  till  he  comes  to  the  missing  "  Monthly,"  safe 
under  the  shawls  where  he  deposited  it. 

If  you  are  hanging  your  room  with  ground-pine, 
he  lays  hold  of  every  stray  twig,  and  tucks  it  into 
every  crack  he  can  reach.  Will  you  have  some 
corn  out  of  the  barrel  ?  It  is  Jamie  for  balancing 
himself  on  the  edge,  and  reaching  down  into  the 
depths  after  it,  till  little  more  than  his  heels  are 
visible.  If  in  a  sudden  exuberance,  you  make  a 
"cheese,"  —  not  culinary,  but  whirligig, — round 
go  his  little  bobtail  petticoats  in  fatuous  imitation. 
You  walk  the  floor  awhile,  lost  in  day  dream 
ing,  to  find  this  little  monkey  trotting  behind 
you  with  droll  gravity,  his  hands  clasped  behind 
his  head  like  yours ;  and  he  breaks  in  upon  your 
most  serious  meditations  with,  "  Baddy  get  down 


KING  JAMES    THE  FIRST.  285 

on  floor,  want  wide  on  Baddy  back,"  as  coolly  as 
if  he  were  asking  you  to  pass  the  salt.  All  that 
he  says,  all  that  he  does,  has  its  peculiar  charm. 
Not  that  he  is  in  the  least  a  remarkable  child. 

"  I  trust  we  have  within  our  realme 
Five  (thousand)  as  good  as  hee." 

Otherwise  what  will  befall  this  sketch  ? 

I  do  not  expect  anything  will  ever  come  of  him. 
In  a  few  years  he  will  be  just  like  everybody  else  ; 
but  now  he  is  the  peculiar  gift  of  Heaven.  Men 
and  women  walk  and  talk  all  day  long,  and  nobody 
minds  them ;  while  this  little  ignoramus  seldom 
opens  his  lips  but  you  think  nothing  was  ever  so 
winsomely  spoken.  I  suspect  it  is  only  his  com 
plete  simplicity  and  sincerity.  What  he  says  and 
what  he  does  are  the  direct,  unmistakable  effusions 
of  his  nature.  All  comes  straight  from  the  secret 
place  where  his  soul  abideth.  Even  his  subter 
fuges  are  open  as  the  day.  You  know  you  are 
looking  upon  virgin  nature.  Just  as  it  flashed 
from  its  source,  you  see  the  unadulterated  spirit. 
If  grown-up  persons  would  or  could  be  as  frank 
as  he,  —  if  they  had  no  more  misgivings,  conceal 
ments,  self-distrust,  self-thought  than  he, — they 
would  doubtless  be  as  interesting.  Every  separate 
human  being  is  a  separate  phenomenon  and  mys 
tery  ;  and  if  he  could  only  be  unthinkingly  himself, 
as  Jamie  is,  that  self  would  be  as  much  more  cap 
tivating  as  it  is  become  great  and  fine  by  growth 
and  experience.  But  we  —  fashion,  habit,  society, 


286  SUMMER  REST. 

training,  all  the  culture  of  life,  mix  a  sort  of  paste, 
and  we  gradually  become  coated  with  it,  and  it 
hardens  upon  us ;  so  it  comes  to  pass,  by  and  by, 
that  we  see  our  associates  no  longer,  but  only  the 
casing  in  which  they  walk  about ;  and  as  one  is  a 
good  deal  like  another,  we  are  not  deeply  fasci 
nated.  Sometimes  a  Thor's  hammer  breaks  this 
flinty  rock  in  pieces.  Sometimes  a  fervid  sun  melts 
it,  and  you  are  let  in  to  where  the  vigilant  soul 
keeps  watch  and  ward.  Sometimes,  alas  !  the  hard 
ening  process  seems  to  have  struck  in,  and  you  find 
nothing  but  petrifaction  all  the  way  through. 

Perhaps,  after  all,  it  is  just  as  well ;  for,  if  our 
neighbors  won  upon  us  unawares  as  Jamie  does, 
when  should  we  ever  find  time  to  do  anything? 
On  the  whole,  it  is  a  great  deal  better  as  it  is,  until 
the  world  has  learned  to  love  its  neighbor  as  itself. 
For  the  present,  it  would  not  be  safe  to  go  abroad 
with  the  soul  exposed.  You  fetch  me  a  blow  with 
your  bludgeon,  and  I  mind  it  not  at  all  through 
my  coat  of  mail ;  but  if  it  had  fallen  on  my  heart,  it 
would  have  wounded  me  to  death.  Nay,  if  you 
did  but  know  where  the  sutures  are,  how  you 
would  stab  and  stab,  dear  fellow-man  and  brother, 
not  to  say  Christian  !  No,  we  are  not  to  be  trusted 
with  each  other  yet,  —  I  with  you,  nor  you  with 
me ;  so  we  will  keep  our  armor  on  awhile,  please 
Heaven. 

And  as  I  think  of  Jamie  frisking  through  the 
happy,  merry  days,  I  see  how  sad,  unnatural,  and 


KING  JAMES    THE  FIRST.  287 

wicked  a  thing  it  is,  that  mothers  must  so  often 
miss  the  sunshine  that  ought  to  come  to  them 
through  their  little  ones.  We  speak  of  losing 
children,  when  they  die ;  but  many  a  mother  loses 
her  children,  though  they  play  upon  her  threshold 
every  day.  She  loses  them,  because  she  has  no 
leisure  to  loiter,  and  live  in  them.  She  is  so  occu 
pied  in  providing  for  their  wants,  that  she  has  no 
time  to  sun  herself  in  their  grace.  She  snatches 
from  them  sweetness  enough  to  keep  herself  alive, 
but  she  does  not  ripen  in  their  warmth  for  all  the 
world.  And  the  hours  go  by,  and  the  days  go  by, 
evening  and  morning,  seed-time  and  harvest,  and 
the  little  frocks  are  outgrown,  and  the  little  socks 
outworn,  and  the  little  baby — O,  there  is  no  little 
baby  any  more,  but  a  boy  with  the  crust  formed 
already  on  his  soul. 

I  marvel  what  becomes  of  these  small  people  in 
heaven.  They  cannot  stay  as  they  are,  for  then 
heaven  would  be  a  poorer  place  than  earth,  where 
all  but  idiots  increase  in  wisdom  and  stature.  And 
if  they  keep  growing,  —  why,  it  seems  but  a  sorry 
exchange,  to  give  up  your  tender,  tiny,  clinging 
infant,  that  is  still  almost  a  part  of  your  own  life, 
and  receive  in  return  a  full-grown  angel  a  great 
deal  wiser  and  stronger  than  you.  Perhaps  it  is 
only  a  just  punishment  for  our  guilty  ignorance 
and  selfishness  in  treating  the  little  things  so 
harshly,  that  they  die  away  from  us  in  sheer  self- 
defence.  And  how  good  is  the  All-Father  thus  to 


288  SUMMER   REST. 

declare  for  His  little  ones,  when  the  strife  waxes 
too  hot,  and  the  odds  too  heavy  against  them  ! 
We  can  maltreat  them,  but  only  to  a  certain  limit. 
Beyond  that,  the  lovely,  stern  angel  of  Death  steps 
in,  and  bears  them  softly  away  to  perpetual  peace. 
I  read  our  vital  statistics, — so  many  thousands 
under  five  years  of  age  dying  each  year ;  and  I 
rejoice  in  every  one.  If  their  chances  were  fair 
for  purity  and  happiness,  the  earth  is  too  beautiful 
to  slip  so  quickly  from  their  hold ;  but  with  sin  and 
suffering,  twin  beasts  of  prey,  lying  in  wait  to  de 
vour,  oh !  thrice  and  four  times  happy  they  who 
escape  swiftly  from  the  struggle  in  which  they  are 
all  too  sure  to  fail.  So  many,  at  least,  are  safe 
within  the  fold. 

And  thus,  too,  it  seems  providential,  that  the  sin 
of  pagan  nations  should  take  the  form  of  infanti 
cide.  It  is  Satanic  work,  but  God  overrules  it  for 
good.  Evil  defeats  itself,  and  hatred  crowds  the 
list  of  love.  From  stifled  cities,  overfull,  from 
heathen  lands,  steeped  centuries  long  in  vice  and 
crime,  from  East  and  West  and  North  and  South, 
over  all  the  world,  the  innocent  souls  go  up,  — 
little  lily-buds,  springing  white  and  pure  from 
earthly  slime  to  bloom  in  heavenly  splendor. 

Jamie,  Jamie,  do  you  see  birdie  has  put  his  head 
under  his  wing  and  gone  to  sleep  ?  What  does  that 
mean  ?  It  means  "  Good  night,  Jamie."  Now 
come,  let  us  have  "  Cr-e-e-p,  cr-e-e-p,  cr-e-e-p ! " 
And  two  fingers  go  slowly,  measuring  Jamie  from 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  289 

toe  to  neck,  and  Jamie  cringes  and  squirms  and 
finally  screams  outright,  and  almost  flings  himself 
upon  the  floor ;  but,  as  soon  as  his  spasm  is  over, 
begs  again,  "  Say,  '  K-e-e-p,  k-e-e-p,  k-e-e-p  ! ' ' 
and  would  keep  it  going  longer  than  I  have  time 
to  wait. 

In  this  very  passion  for  reiteration  may  be  found 
a  sufficient  answer  to  those  uneasy  persons  who 
are  perpetually  attempting  to  bring  new  singing- 
books  into  our  churches,  on  pretext  that  people 
are  tired  of  the  old  tunes.  You  never  hear  from 
Jamie's  pure  taste  any  clamor  for  new  songs  or 
stories.  Whenever  he  climbs  up  to  your  lap  to  be 
amused  he  is  sure  to  ask  for  the  story  of  "  Kitty  in 
Ga'et  Window,"  though  he  knows  it  as  Boston 
people  know  oratorio  music,  and  detects  and  con 
demns  the  slightest  departure  from  the  text.  And 
when  you  have  gone  through  the  drama,  with  all 
its  motions  and  mewings,  he  wants  nothing  so  much 
as  "Kitty  in  Ga'et  Window  'gen."  Let  us  keep 
the  old  tunes.  It  is  but  a  factitious  need  that 
would  change  them. 

Gentle  and  friendly  reader,  I  pray  your  pardon 
for  this  childish  record.  Some  things  I  say  of  set 
purpose  for  your  good,  and  the  more  you  do  not 
like  them,  the  more  I  know  they  are  the  very 
things  you  need  ;  and  I  shall  continue  to  deal  them 
out  to  you  from  time  to  time,  as  you  are  able  to 
bear  them.  But  this  broken,  rambling  child-talk  — 
with  "  a  few  practical  reflections,  arising  naturally 
13  a 


290  SUMMER  REST. 

from  my  subject,"  as  the  preachers  say  —  was 
penned  only  for  your  pleasure  —  and  mine;  and 
if  you  do  not  like  it,  I  shall  be  very  sorry,  and 
wish  I  had  never  written  it.  For  we  might  have 
gone  away  by  ourselves  and  enjoyed  it  all  alone ; 
could  we  not,  Jamie,  you  and  I  together  ?  0 
no,  no  !  Never  again  !  Never,  never  again  !  for 
the  mountains  that  rise  and  the  prairies  that  roll 
between  us.  Ah  well,  Jamie,  I  shall  not  cry 
about  it.  If  you  had  stayed  here,  it  would  have 
been  but  a  little  while  before  you  would  have 
grown  up  into  a  big  boy,  and  then  a  young  fellow, 
and  then  a  man,  and  been  of  no  account.  So 
what  does  it  signify  ?  Good  night,  little  Jamie ! 
good  night,  darling  !  Do  I  hear  a  sleepy  echo,  as  of 
old,  wavering  out  of  the  West,  "  Groo-i-dah-ing  "  ? 

H.  I  suppose  that  "  gentle  and  friendly  reader  " 
does  not  mean  me.  I  am  saluted  with  bayonet 
and  blunderbuss  rather  than  such  sweet  supplica 
tory  phrase. 

/.  Yes,  I  am  obliged  to  carry  matters  with  a  high 
hand  towards  you.  But  is  not  this  nice?  You 
have  enjoyed  it  I  know.  Do  not  deny  it.  On  the 
whole,  what  do  you  think  of  me  as  a  historian? 

H.  Ah  !  —  well,  yes,  I  have  enjoyed  it  so  far 
as  general  character  is  concerned.  I  think  it 
quite  the  best  piece  of  style  I  have  ever  seen 
from  you. 

I.  Charming !     Only  there  is  no  style  about  it. 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  291 

H.  But  you  — 

I.  O,  now  do  not  go  and  spoil  it  all.  It  is  so 
seldom  you  pay  me  a  compliment,  do  let  me  have 
the  good  of  it  for  once. 

H.  I  can't  tell  a  lie,  Pa,  you  know  I  can't  tell 
a  lie. 

/.  Don't  tell  a  lie,  then ;  just  stop  where  you 
are. 

H.  O  well.  Anything  to  please  you.  What 
have  you  done  with  iny  book  ? 

I.  What  were  you  going  to  say  if  I  had  not 
hindered  you  ? 

H.  I  was  going  to  say  my  name  is  Norval  on 
the  Grampian  hills  ! 

/.  Nonsense  !     Tell  me. 

H.  Well,  then,  it  strikes  me  you  have,  as  usual, 
lugged  in  some  theology  — 

/.  No,  I  have  not  lugged  in  anything,  —  the 
ology  or  physiology.  Everything  that  is  there 
came  of  its  own  accord.  I  tell  you  theology  is  in 
everything,  and  you  cannot  keep  it  out. 

H.  At  any  rate  it  is  there,  and  you  are  responsi 
ble  for  it,  however  it  got  there.  You  intimate  that 
the  theory  of  the  Doctors  of  Divinity  and  the 
statements  of  the  Bible  in  regard  to  human  de- 

O 

pravity  are  not  sustained  by  the  facts  in  Jamie's 
case  ;  yet  he  is  expressly  not  exceptional,  only  that 
he  is  well  and  well-conditioned.  But  in  the  popu 
lar  estimate,  to  reject  human  depravity  is  to  reject 
Orthodoxy. 


292  SUMMER  REST. 

I.  But  I  — 

H.  Wait  a  minute,  I  am  not  quite  through. 
And  to  reject  Orthodoxy  is  to  range  on  the  side  of 
nationalism  against  Evangelical  religion  — 

/.  Let  me  just  ask  you  one  question.  Are  you 
speaking  your  own  thoughts  or  making  believe  for 
some  imaginary  objector? 

H.  Truth  is  truth.  Never  mind  sources.  For 
your  argument,  is  it  not  something  of  a  broken 
reed?  You  might  pick  up  the  cub  of  a  grizzly 
bear  of  the  same  relative  age  with  Jamie  and  hold 
forth  over  it :  "  Laying  aside  the  revelations  of  the 
Natural  History  books,  and  of  the  professors  of 
that  science,  I  should  say  that  its  nature  is  honest, 
simple,  healthful,  pure,  and  good.  It  is  affection 
ate,  clumsy,  playful,  and  lives  wholly  on  milk.  It 
shows  no  carnivorous  propensity,  no  inclination  to 
prefer  blood  and  bones  to  mush  and  molasses.  It 
just  lives  on  its  fun-loving,  playful  yet  earnest  lifo 
from  day  to  day,  a  pure  and  perfect  example  to  my 
eye  of  what  God  meant  a  kitten  or  a  lamb  to  be. 
I  cannot  see  how  it  could  be  very  different  from 
what  it  is,  if  it  were  intended  to  be  a  poodle-dog 
in  heaven.  In  spite  of  all  theories  and  probabili 
ties,  here  is  this  little  grizzly  under  my  own  eye 
developing  a  far  stronger  tendency  to  love,  kind 
ness,  sympathy,  and  all  the  innocent  and  benevo 
lent  qualities  than  to  their  opposites."  And  yet  I 
fancy  I  see  you  trusting  yourself  within  reach  of 
the  paws  and  jaws  of  grizzly  when  he  has  had  time 


KING  JAMES   THE   FIRST.  293 

to  become  a  little  more  "  developed  "  in  this  na 
ture  whose  youngness  is  so  cunningly  safe  and 
piquantly  good. 

The  flaw  is,  that  yon  have  left  out  of  your  argu 
ment  the  great  influence  which  infancy  has  in 
masking  character.  Almost  any  ill  beast  is  pleas 
ant  in  its  immaturity.  I  have  seen  little  pigs  than 
whom  I  could  scarce  conceive  of  "  cunninger " 
pets,  yet  all  the  while  on  their  swift,  unswerving 
way  to  unmitigated  hog-hood.  Here  endeth  the 
first  lesson. 

I.  You  have  finished  your  sermon  ? 

H.  For  the  present. 

I.  I  think  it  is  as  poor  a  sermon  as  ever  I 
heard. 

H.  Free  your  mind,  brother,  as  they  say  in 
class-meeting. 

/.  It  is  very  good,  in  fact  it  is  quite  pictu 
resque  in  point  of  style,  but  for  substance  of  doc 
trine  it  is  just  nothing  at  all.  I  can  demolish  it  so 
easily  that  I  really  do  not  know  where  to  begin. 

H.   O,  pitch  right  in  anywhere. 

J.  No,  I  shall  go  to  work  systematically.  You  say 
that  I  say  that  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity  is 
not  sustained  by  the  facts  in  Jamie's  case.  I  do 
not  say  that  exactly,  but  rather  by  the  appearance 
of  Jamie's  case ;  by  what  seem  to  me  to  be  the 
facts.  But  never  mind  that.  Does  the  doctrine 
of  depravity  depend  upon  the  development  of  a 
two-year-old  boy  ?  I  simply  affirm,  leaving  out  the 


294  SUMMER  REST. 

Bible,  you  would  judge  so  and  so.  But  do  I  leavo 
out  the  Bible  ?  Is  not  that  what  the  Bible  is  for, 
—  to  help  us  in  making  up  judgment?  And  do  I 
object  to  using  it  for  that  purpose  ?  If  I  should  des 
cant  upon  your  cub,  "  Leaving  out  the  revelations 
of  the  Natural  History  books,  and  of  the  professors 
of  that  science,  I  should  say  that  it  has  a  simple, 
playful,  kindly  nature,"  would  you  immediately  cry 
out,  "  O,  now  you  are  going  over  to  the  lamb- 
and-kitten  theory  of  bears  !  "  or  would  you  answer 
quietly,  "  That  is  true  as  far  as  it  goes ;  but  in  finally 
making  up  your  mind  you  must  not  leave  out  their 
revelations,  nor  the  revelations  which  your  own 
eyes  will  make,  when  your  cub  has  become  a  full- 
grown  bear.  All  who  have  made  a  study  of  Bru 
in's  life  from  infancy  to  old  age,  agree  that  a  bear 
is  a  bear  by  nature  and  not  by  education  "  ?  I  de 
clare  expressly,  that  I  am  not  able  to  account  for 
the  abounding  wickedness  in  the  world,  except  on 
the  theory  of  innate  depravity ;  but,  on  the  other 
side,  I  am  equally  certain  that  I  recognize  no  marks 
of  depravity  in  Jamie.  His  infancy  has  completely 
masked  it  from  me.  And  I  am  talking  about  what 
I  see,  not  what  you  assure  me  is  there. 

H.  But  directly  afterwards  you  begin  to  modify 
the  creed,  and  reduce  depravity  to  disease,  thereby 
virtually  abolishing  it. 

I.  Abolishing  a  great  deal  of  it  to  be  sure,  but 
not  the  whole.  What  I  maintain  is,  that  the  evi 
dence  is  not  all  in  until  healthy  human  nature  has 
had  a  chance  to  testify. 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  295 

H.  But  you  are  ready  to  deny  that  to  be  human 
nature  which  is  diseased.  Yet  morally  it  has  be 
come  so  by  sin,  and  you  must  take  it  as  it  has 
become  since  the  fall. 

I.  I  do  take  it,  fall  and  all.  By  disease  I  do 
not  mean  any  mysterious  kink  caused  by  Adam, 
but  such  moral  and  physical  disease  as  we  see 
contracting  around  us  all  the  time.  I  mean,  for 
instance,  that  parents  neglect  their  children's  teeth, 
and  so  the  children  have  toothache,  and  toothache 
makes  them  cross.  Parents  suffer  their  children 
to  eat  improper  food  in  an  improper  manner,  and 
so  impair  their  digestion,  and  this  again  makes 
them  fretful  and  unhappy.  They  permit  them 
to  sit  up  too  late,  to  go  out  evenings  while  they 
are  still  children,  —  and  when  a  child  ought  to  be 
in  bed,  it  does  not  matter  much  whether  it  is  a 
children's  ball  or  a  Sunday-school  concert  that 
keeps  him  out  of  it,  —  and  so  the  nervous  system 
is  injured.  They  do  not  enforce  prompt  and  per 
fect  obedience,  and  the  character  is  permanently 
weakened.  They  thwart  unnecessarily  or  scold 
capriciously  and  the  temper  is  soured.  Now  I 
say,  this  is  our  own  fault,  and  nobody  else's.  A 
mother  can  send  her  child  to  bed  at  seven  o'clock 
just  as  regularly  as  if  no  apple  ever  grew,  and 
to  turn  all  the  wrong  off  upon  Adam,  and  call  it 
human  nature  and  original  sin,  is  a  great  piece  of 
injustice. 

H.  O  yes,  it  is  original  sin  —  with  all  who 
commit  it. 


296  SUMMER  REST. 

I.  You  never  lapse  from  logic  into  puns,  till 
you  have  exhausted  every  other  resource. 

H.  Possibly  the  very  weakness  which  cannot 
command  obedience,  and  the  ignorance  which  does 
not  see  its  necessity,  may  be  owing  to  the  fall,  if 
you  trace  it  back  far  enough. 

I.  Whatever  it  is  owing  to,  away  with  it  as 
fast  as  possible.  Rend  off  all  the  wickedness  that 
comes  from  palpable  mismanagement,  and  let  us 
see  what  manner  of  being  we  have  on  our  hands. 
I,  for  one,  have  not  the  least  apprehension  that 
it  will  be  a  creature  too  bright  or  good  for  human 
nature's  daily  food,  or  that  there  will  not  be  sin- 
fulness  enough  left  for  faith  to  fasten  on.  But 
some  of  you  people  seem  to  stickle  for  depravity, 
as  if  it  were  a  precious  legacy,  and  you  feared 
lest  an  avaricious  world  should  seek  to  rob  you 
of  some  part  or  lot  in  it.  You  make  an  idol  of  it, 
and  guard  it  against  profane  approach.  You  cry 
out,  with  the  old  lady,  "  When  you  have  taken 
away  my  total  depravity,  you  have  taken  away 
my  religion." 

H.  Very  tart  and  smart,  my  dear ;  but  as  an 
argument,  to  borrow  the  phraseology  of  our  "  way 
ward  sisters,"  not  worth  shucks. 

I.  No,  but  at  least  you  need  not  be  so  anxious, 
lest  humanity  should  not  be  painted  in  colors 
dark  enough.  Why,  your  own  cubs  here  turn 
and  rend  you.  They  grow  up  into  ravenous  bears, 
not  because  they  are  neglected  and  mismanaged, 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  297 

but  because  their  nature  is  ravenous.  The  most 
healthy  and  the  best-bred  cub  is  savage  and  blood 
thirsty.  But  a  child  healthy  and  properly  trained 
is  expected  to  become  a  well-behaved  man.  If  he 
proves  anything  else,  we  call  it  strange,  inexplica 
ble.  Therefore  it  seems  his  bent  to  badness  is  a 
different  thing  from  a  bear's  bent  to  blood. 

H.  Of  course  the  human  being  is  more  suscepti 
ble  to  training  than  any  other. 

I.  And  that  fact  ouopht  to  be  brought  out  more 

O  O 

fully.  Whatever  theory  we  hold  as  to  how  we 
came  to  be  so  weak  and  wicked,  or  even  to  what 
degree  we  are  weak  and  wicked,  the  vital  thing  is 
to  make  the  most  of  Christ's  help  in  becoming 
strong  and  good.  This  we  scarcely  begin  to  do. 
We  scarcely  know  there  is  such  a  thing  to  be  done. 
We  talk  about  our  strength  being  in  the  Lord,  but 
we  let  it  be  there.  We  do  not  lay  hold  of  it  and 
use  it  economically.  We  have  inexhaustible  treas 
ures  laid  up  in  Christ,  but  we  rarely  draw  upon 
them.  Where  do  we  look  chiefly  for  accessions  to 
the  Church  ?  Why,  to  revivals. 

H.  Where  would  you  have  us  look  ? 

I.  To  the  children  of  the  Church  for  the  steady 
supply.  Public  opinion  should  be  so  formed  that 
the  Christianization  of  children  shall  be  considered 
as  much  the  duty  of  parents  as  the  clothing  of 
children.  Children  shall  grow  up  into  Christianity 
just  as  they  grow  up  into  manhood  and  woman 
hood.  Their  spiritual  strength  shall  go  hand  in 

13* 


298  SUMMER  REST. 

hand  with  their   moral  and  intellectual  strength. 
They  shall  become  members  of  the  Church  as  reg 
ularly  as  they  become  citizens  of  the  State.      It 
should   be    as  unnatural   and  uncommon  for  the 
children    of  Christian    parents   to   grow    up    not 
Christians,  as  it  is  for  the  child  of  honest  parents 
to  grow  up  a  thief,  —  something  to  be  remarked 
upon  and  looked  into.      It  is  intolerable  the  way 
we  have   of  considering  wrong   as   right.       If  a 
boy  of  sixteen  becomes  a  Christian  during  a  re 
vival  we  call  it  early  conversion,  an   answer  to 
the  prayers  of  faith,  and  give  glory  to  God,  and 
are  abundantly  satisfied.     But  in  truth  it  is  late 
conversion,  and  only  just  better  than  no  conver 
sion  at  all.     As  if  one  could  go  on  sixteen  years 
in  sin  with  impunity,  if  at  the  end  of  them  he  re 
pents  of  his  sin  !    The  sixteen  formative  years,  the 
very  years  that  make  the  man,  are  reckoned  of 
small  account.      I  think  that  is  one  reason  why 
Christian  character  is  so  defective ;  it  is  because 
the  Christian  principle  comes  in  so  late.     A  man 
after  years  of  wrong-doing,  wrong-thinking,  wrong- 
feeling,  may  become  a  sincere  Christian,  but  his 
bad  habits  are  so  strong  that  he  can  hardly  break 
them  off.     He  has  been  so  long  in  the  clutch  of 
sin   that   he    cannot    wrench    himself  free.       His 
selfishness  has  become  a  sort  of  mould,   his  soul 
has   been   fashioned  in  it;   and  though  he  would 
now  break  the  mould,  it  is  only  with  the  utmost 
difficulty,  and  after  years  of  patient  struggle,  that 


KING  JAMES    THE   FIRST.  299 

this  distorted  shape  will  be  changed  into  the  image 
of  Christ.  And  this  struggle  he  is  too  weak  to 
make  with  vigor;  often  he  is  so  thoroughly  de 
bauched  by  sin  that  he  does  not  perceive  the 
necessity  of  making  it.  So  the  religion  of  Christ 
is  constantly  falsified  by  his  shortcomings. 

If.  But  he  does  break  off  his  habits.  If  he 
does  not  see  the  need  of  making  effort  to  become 
better,  he  was  never  truly  a  Christian.  You  make 
no  account  of  grace.  Paul  says  he  can  do  all 
things  through  Christ  strengthening  him. 

/.  So  can  any  of  us,  but  we  do  not.  What  is 
the  use  of  talking  ?  You  know  perfectly  well  that 
people's  bad  habits  cling  to  them  long  after  they 
have  become  Christians.  You  have  seen  self- 
willed,  prejudiced,  domineering,  miserly,  gossiping 
church-members  enough  to  know  that.  I  am  not 
accusing  them,  but  excusing  them.  I  suppose 
them  to  have  gone  on  gossiping  and  domineering 
so  long  that  they  do  not  know  they  do  gossip  and 
domineer.  Grace  does  not  make  a  man  reform 
in  those  respects  in  which  he  deems  himself  right 
already. 

//.  But  it  does  often  open  his  eyes  to  see  the 
wrong  in  that  which  lie  thought  right.  And  if 
such  a  man  is  to  be  changed  at  all,  so  much  the 
more  there  must  be  a  revival  to  change  him.  His 
childhood  lacked  the  forming  hand.  The, ordinary 
ways  of  God  have  failed  to  move  him.  It  needs 
the  extraordinary,  the  sympathy  and  excitement 


300  SUMMER  REST. 

of  a  revival.  He  may  never  be  so  symmetrical  a 
man  as  if  he  had  served  the  Lord  from  his  birth  ; 
but  he  will  be  a  better  man  than  if  no  revival  had 
touched  him.  As  things  are,  I  do  not  see  how 
we  can  get  on  without  revivals. 

I.  As  things  are,  but  things  ought  to  be  dif 
ferent.  I  do  not  object  to  revivals  as  an  adjunct, 
as  a  sort  of  aggressive  movement  upon  the  world ; 
but  we  content  ourselves  with  them,  we  count 
upon  revivals  to  do  our  work  for  us.  We  have 
a  long  period  of  indifference,  then  an  excitement, 
numerous  meetings,  a  good  deal  of  religious  emo 
tion,  some  awakening  of  religious  principle  ;  much 
hasty,  ill-considered,  unintelligent  action,  some 
real  benefit.  Perhaps  a  revival  is  better  than 
indifference.  Sometimes  a  religious  life  is  begun 
wThich  brightens  on  into  the  perfect  day.  Some 
times  a  man  is  lifted  out  of  the  mire  of  cross  sins 

O 

into  clean  and  fair  habitations,  and  sometimes  self 
ishness  gets  itself  baptized  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  and  goes  its  way  as  complacently 
as  if  it  had  been  changed  into  love. 

H.  But  I  think  a  revival  generally  leaves  those 
who  have  been  brought  under  its  influence  a  little 
better  than  they  were  before. 

I.  But  I  do  not  see  that  a  community  living 
midway  between  a  second  and  third  revival  is 
on  a  higher  plane  than  when  it  was  midway 
between  a  first  and  second  revival.  Good  and 
shrewd  Mrs.  Blank  was  saying  the  other  day 


KING  JAMES   THE   FIRST.  301 

how  much  revivals  were  needed.  I  answered, 
"Yes,  I  wish  we  could  have  revivals,  —  such  as 
would  keep  us  church-members  from  telling  lies, 
and  breaking  promises,  and  enjoying  our  neigh 
bors'  troubles,  and  not  paying  our  debts."  *'  Nev 
er,"  said  she  emphatically,  —  "  never  will  you  live 
to  see  that  day." 

H.  Very  likely,  but  there  is  one  comfort ;  we 
are  not  quite  so  bad  as  the  early  Christians.  They 
must  have  been  a,  hard  set,  those  Gauls  and  Co 
rinthians,  judging  from  the  way  Paul  took  them 
to  task. 

I.  I  wonder  he  was  not  wholly  discouraged. 

H.  So,  though  you  cannot  see  improvement 
from  year  to  year,  you  can  see  it  in  eighteen 
hundred  years.  And  eighteen  hundred  years  is 
not  much  in  the  world's  history. 

/.  But  I  really  think  if  we  cannot  put  reviv 
als  more  into  the  background  it  would  be  better 
not  to  have  them  at  all.  If  we  are  going  to  spend 
all  our  force  on  them,  call  them  the  harvesting 
of  the  crop,  we  shall  have  the  work  to  do  over 
again  from  generation  to  generation,  and  shall 
never  get  on.  But  let  Christian  parents  be  taught 
that  they  are  responsible  for  their  children ;  that 
they  are  not  simply  to  pray  for  the  child's  salva 
tion,  but  to  work  it  out ;  that  the  formation  of  his 
Christian  character  is  not  only  their  duty,  as  much 
as  the  establishment  of  his  physical  health,  but  is 
equally  within  their  power ;  that  every  child  who 


302  SUMMER  REST. 

grows  up  unconverted  is  a  living  monument  of 
parental  ignorance,  or  unfaithfulness  ;  and  then  — 

H.  The  first  twenty  times  I  heard  you  say  this 
I  thought  it  was  all  right,  the  second,  I  kept 
silence,  but  now  that  you  have  begun  on  the 
third  score,  J  begin  to  think  I  don't  believe  it. 
I  admit  that  the  parent's  power  over  the  child 
is  great,  but  I  question  whether  it  is  supreme. 
Where  is  your  authority  ? 

I.  In  the  Bible,  in  nature,  and  in  the  char 
acter  of  God.  The  -Old  Testament  — 

H.  Heavens !  Have  I  upset  another  basket 
of  theology  on  my  poor  head? 

I.  No,  only  a  thimbleful  if  you  keep  quiet. 
The  Old  Testament  recognizes  absolute  power 
of  the  father  over  children.  The  Lord  said,  I 
know  Abraham,  that  he  will  command  his  chil 
dren  and  his  household  after  him,  and  they  shall 
keep  the  way  of  the  Lord.  The  New  Testament 
promises  everything  to  the  prayer  of  faith.  .By 
( -x looting  good  parents  to  have  good  children, 
by  being  surprised  when  the  child  of  bad  par 
ents  turns  out  well,  we  confess  the  law  of  nature. 
And  knowing  the  goodness  of  God,  can  we  believe 
that  he  would  give  to  human  beings  the  power 
of  evoking  a  soul  without  also  giving  them  the 
power  of  saving  it  alive? 

H.  Yet  you  see  the  children  of  the  most  careful 
and  prayerful  parents  going  wrong. 

/.  Not   without   seeing  also  a  sufficient  prodis- 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  303 

posing  cause,  —  that  is,  where  there  has  been  op 
portunity  to  see  the  process  ;  and  this  in  so  many 
cases,  that  where  I  see  only  the  disastrous  result 
I  infer  that  there  has  been  a  cause.  From  my 
observation  I  judge  that  cause  and  etlect  are  just 
as  closely  connected  in  families  as  in  farms.  Wise 
culture  in  both  brings  good  harvests.  We  no 
more  gather  grapes  of  thorns  or  grow  thistles  on 
fig-trees  in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other. 

II.  But  the  trouble  is  in  knowing  what  wise 
culture  is.  One  Isabella  grape-vine  is  just  like 
another  Isabella  grape-vine  ;  but  of  five  children 
in  one  family,  no  two  will  be  alike.  Every  one 
needs  a  different  management  from  every  other. 
The  young  parents  strive  conscientiously  and  un- 
weariedly  to  do  their  best,  but  the  result  is  any 
thing  but  happy.  Perhaps  you  can  see  where 
they  make  a  mistake,  but  they  do  not  see  it.  Per 
haps  in  their  place  you  would  do  no  better, 
perhaps  far  worse.  What  are  you  going  to  do 
about  it? 

/.  I  am  going  to  be  confident  that  the  great 
(iod  who  formed  both  parent  and  child  is  more 
considerate  than  you  or  I,  and  will  make  every 
allowance  when  he  makes  the  final  decision.  But 
I  really  do  not  see  how  it  is  possible  to  make  a 
fatal  mistake,  when  the  Apostle  .lames  says  in 
so  many  words,  "  It'  any  among  you  lack  wisdom, 
let  him  ask  of  God,  who  giveth  to  all  men  liberally 
and  upbraideth  not,  and  it  shall  be  given  him." 


304  SUMMER  REST. 

Why  not  take  God  at  his  word?  Do  the  very 
best  you  can,  and  demand  of  God  wisdom,  accord 
ing  to  his  promise.  Do  as  Manoah  did,  entreat 
the  Lord  to  "  teach  us  what  we  shall  do  unto 
the  child  that  shall  be  born."  "  How  shall  we 
order  the  child,  and  how  shall  we  do  unto  him  ?" 

H.  Yet  "  the  child"  turned  out  to  be  anything 
but  an  exemplary  man. 

I.  I  know  he  was  no  better  than  he  should 
be.  Perhaps  they  did  not  follow  it  up.  At  any 
rate,  the  child  grew  and  the  Lord  blessed  him,  and 
he  became  a  great  man.  From  the  answer  which 
was  given  to  Manoah's  prayer,  I  should  not  infer 
that  his  parents  were  thinking  about  his  moral 
character  when  they  asked  guidance.  However, 
there  is  the  promise.  I  am  not  responsible  for  it. 
If  it  is  not  kept,  you  must  settle  the  matter  with 
the  Apostle  James,  not  with  me.  And  really  if  it 
were  so,  that  God  would  give  a^  child  to  parents, 
and  would  not  grant  with  him,  to  their  earnest 
prayers  and  best  endeavor,  power  to  train  him  so 
as  to  insure  his  salvation,  I  could  not  say  that  God 
was  good.  Your  child  is  nothing  to  be  thankful 
for,  if  he  may  be  lost  in  spite  of  you. 

H.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  however,  that  the 
children  are  pretty  well  along  in  the  world  before 
their  fathers  and  mothers  have  reflected  very 
deeply  upon  its  evils.  The  light-hearted  young 
people  are  loving  and  housekeeping  and  baby-tend 
ing  without  much  abstract  thinking.  Great  moral 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  305 

duties  and  dangers  occupy  very  little  of  their  at 
tention.  Knowledge  comes  late,  and  wisdom  lin 
gers,  but  the  little  souls  are  on  time.  If  you  could 
make  some  arrangement  by  which  the  "  idols  in 
white  frocks  "  should  be  given  into  the  keeping  of 
sensible,  experienced,  reflecting  persons  of  a  philo 
sophical  turn  of  mind,  instead  of  silly  young  things 
who  know  nothing  of  life,  perhaps  you  might  ac 
complish  something. 

I.  That  remark  is  not  nearly  so  sarcastic  as  you 
meant  it  to  be,  because  it  has  not  that  basis  of  truth 
without  which  even  caricature  has  no  point.  The 
great  need  is,  not  to  have  people  know  the  right, 
but  to  do  it.  It  was  sin  that  first  offered  us  the 
fruit  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil,  and  as  far  as  we  can  put  away  sin  we  can 
put  away  that  fruit.  If  boys  and  girls  are  brought 
up  to  do  right  as  boys  and  girls,  when  they  come 
to  be  parents  they  will  naturally  and  easily  do 
right  as  parents.  Love  is  powerful  as  a  corrective, 
but  it  is  all-sufficient  as  a  stimulus.  The  happy, 
charming  young  girl  may  have  had  little  respon 
sibility  or  experience;  but  if  her  principles  al-e 
right,  her  feelings  true,  with  the  infant  soul  come 
the  love  and  wisdom  necessary  for  its  sustenance. 
It  is  only  because  we  have  so  sunk  into  wrong,  so 
forgotten  God,  that  there  needs  so  much  preach 
ing.  The  highest  health  is  unconscious.  Per 
haps  after  a  few  generations  of  effort  we  shall  get 
into  that  happy  state  that  we  shall  never  think  of 

T 


306  SUMMER  REST. 

these  things  at  all.     The  idea  of  parental  respon 
sibility  will  be  so  thoroughly  inwrought  into  social 
life,  that  one  shall  no  more  dream  of  inculcating  it 
than  of  exhorting  parents  to  love  their  children. 
H.  Somebody's  occupation  will  be  gone  then. 

"  Fly  swiftly  round,  ye  wheels  of  time." 

I.  And  then  I  shall  look  upon  revivals  with  less 
misgiving.  I  shall  not  feel  that  a  spasmodic  in 
terest  is  taking  the  place  of  that  steady  interest 
without  which  the  world  can  never  be  brought 
under  the  dominion  of  Christ ;  without  which  we 
may  overrun,  but  can  never  redeem  it. 

H.  After  all,  I  suspect  that  half  a  loaf  is  better 
than  no  bread. 

I.  Not  if  the  half-loaf  is  going  to  content  you, 
and  so  keep  you  from  vigorous  endeavor  to  earn  a 
steady  and  plentiful  subsistence. 

H.  It  is  vigorous  endeavor  that  some  people 
find  the  most  fault  with  in  connection  with  revi 
vals.  The  use  of  machinery  is  preferred  against 
us  as  a  charge  by  our  opponents  and  as  promptly 
repelled  by  ourselves. 

I.  That  is  not  the  kind  of  endeavor  I  was  think 
ing  of.  But  it  is  a  very  good  kind,  if  it  supple 
ments  and  does  not  supersede  the  daily,  constant 
endeavor  to  make  one's  own  character  and  habits 
good,  and  to  bring  up  one's  own  children  right. 

H.  Certainly.  My  sole  objection  is,  that  we  do 
not  employ  enough  of  it.  So  far  from  condemning 


KING  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  307 

machinery,  I  condemn  only  the  neglect  and  the 
abuse  of  it.  The  Spirit  of  God  will  not  reform 
the  world  without  the  intervention  of  men.  Spir 
itual  harvests  can  no  more  be  reaped  without 
machinery  than  agricultural  harvests.  Doubtless 
unwise  means  are  often  used  to  promote  revivals ; 
I  know  that  there  are  not  unfrequently  imperti 
nence  and  intermeddling.  But  these  infelicities 
are  entirely  local.  They  do  not  inhere  in  the  use 
of  means.  They  do  not  indicate  that  we  are  to  sit 
with  folded  hands  and  expect  God  to  do  all  the 
work.  If  union  meetings,  or  readoption  of  creeds, 
or  renewing  of  covenants,  or  a  united  celebration 
of  the  Lord's  Supper,  is  deemed  useful  in  kin 
dling  the  zeal  and  strengthening  the  love  of  Chris 
tians,  and  so  inciting  them  to  fresh  efforts  in  re 
deeming  the  world,  then  they  are  not  only  right  in 
taking  these  measures,  but  they  would  be  wrong 
not  to  take  them.  And  to  attempt  to  stigmatize 
such  modes  as  "  artificial,"  and  to  denounce  such 
movements  as  machinery,  and  to  depreciate  such 
a  revival  as  "  deliberately  excited,"  is  very  ques 
tionable  in  point  both  of  philosophy  and  courtesy. 
Revivals  ought  to  be  deliberately  excited.  Poor 
and  shallow  and  meagre  as  they  are,  their  faults 
lie  in  another  quarter  than  such  complaints  point 
to.  The  Holy  Ghost  does  not  need  counsel  and 
direction,  but  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  bless 
us  with  fulness  of  blessing  according  as  we  adopt 
wise  counsels  and  walk  in  the  right  direction.  We 


308  SUMMER   REST. 

might  just  as  reasonably  scorn  machinery  in  poli 
tics  or  in  social  science  as  in  religion. 

I.  I  agree  with  you  entirely,  though  I  think  the 
excessive  multiplication  of  meetings  is  unwise,  and 
tends  to  increase  what  is  harmful  in  revivals ; 
and  do  you  not  consider,  too,  the  insinuation  that 
clergymen  have  special  ends  to  answer  in  "  getting 
up  revivals  "  very  unjust  and  in  very  bad  taste  ? 
It  seems  to  me  that  I  know  everything  bad  there 
is  in  revivals,  but  I  never  saw  this. 

H.  The  insinuation  is  far  more  injurious  to  the 
persons  who  make  it  than  to  the  persons  of  whom 
it  is  made.  There  is  no  question  that  ministers 
have  their  littlenesses ;  but  if  absolute  purity  of 
motive  may  be  predicated  of  any  man  in  this 
world  it  may  be  predicated  of  the  educated, 
quiet,  well-bred  Christian  clergyman  who  is  work 
ing  and  praying  for  a  revival  of  religion  in  his 
church  and  congregation.  If  a  disinterested  de 
sire  for  the  highest  good  of  his  fellows  actuates 
any  man,  it  actuates  this  man.  And  even  in  the 
few  cases  where  learning  and  quiet  and  good 
breeding  are  not  obvious,  where  the  modus  ope- 
randi  savors  of  intermeddling,  and  want  of  tact 
does  more  harm  than  zeal  does  good,  the  fault  is 
not  of  motive,  but  of  manner,  not  of  ends,  but 
means.  But  there,  luckily  for  me,  is  the  sun 
coming  out,  and  out  I  am  going.  Any  farm 
drudgery  will  seem  play  to  me  now. 

/.  0,  but  the  grass  is  yet  wet.     The  plantation 


KINO  JAMES   THE  FIRST.  309 

is  all  turned  into  water-courses,  and  I  wanted  to 
say  — 

H.  Plantation! 

1.  Yes,  plantation.  Why  not?  What  is  a  plan 
tation,  pray  ? 

H.  I  can  tell  you  what  it  is  not, —  a  plot  of  land 
where  you  do  your  carting  with  a  tin  pan,  your 
planting  with  a  teacup,  and  your  haying  with  a 
pair  of  scissors. 

There  was  a  stratum  of  fact  underneath  this 
statement,  so  I  let  the  case  go  by  default. 


WELL    DONE. 


is  very  often  urged  against  Ameri 
can  writers,  that  their  productions  are 
ephemera],  that  they  write  for  the  times, 
not  for  eternity.  It  may  be  proper, 
therefore,  to  state  distinctly  at  the  outset,  that  the 
present  paper  is  prepared  exclusively  for  eternity. 
No  contemporary  need  apply.  When  the  existing 
order  of  things  shall  have  passed  away,  when  the 
New  Zealand  traveller  shall  have  finished  his 
sketch  of  the  ruins  of  St.  Paul,  laid  aside  his  port 
folio,  and  drawn  from  his  haversack  his  simple  re 
past  of  doughnuts  and  cheese,  then  is  my  time ! 
His  eye  wandering  dreamily  hither  and  thither, 
will  light  perchance  upon  a  bit  of  paper  fluttering 
from  beneath  a  stone.  Eagerly  exhuming  it,  he 
will  discover  it  to  be  a  stray  copy  of  this  book,  pre 
served  in  the  desert  sands  from  the  tooth  of  time 
for  many  thousand  years  ;  and  on  his  return  to 
New  Zealand,  he  will  have  it  laid  carefully  in  the 
Museum  beneath  a  glass  case,  while  several  copies 
of  this  paper  will  be  printed  for  the  use  of  the  New 


SUMMER  REST.  311 

Zealand  Historical  and  Genealogical  Society  by 
reason  of  the  flood  of  light  it  throws  upon  the  man 
ners,  customs,  and  rural  life  of  a  people  once  brave, 
humane,  and  in  a  degree  civilized,  but  now,  alas ! 
utterly  extinct.  I  quote  from  the  New  Zealand 
Evening  Gazette. 

On  one  of  the  first  cold  mornings  in  the  winter 
of  18 — ,  there  might  have  been  seen  a  young  man 
of  some  seventy  or  eighty  summers  —  I  need  not 
remind  the  thoughtful  reader  that  it  was  myself — 
with  his  head  bowed,  one  eye  securely  shut,  the 
other  determinedly  open,  gazing  steadfastly  into  a 
pump.  It  was  indeed  an  occasion  that  called  for  the 
utmost  concentration  of  purpose,  for  the  kitchen 
fire  was  waiting,  and  the  pump-handle  refused  to 
move.  After  mature  deliberation,  which  none 
better  than  this  young  man  knew  how  to  compass, 
he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  pump  was  fro 
zen  up.  A  wedge  of  ice  through  its  centre  reach 
ing  nearly  to  the  top  confirmed  him  in  this  con 
clusion.  The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  dislodge 
the  intruder.  To  effect  this,  lie  possessed  himself 
of  the  parlor  poker,  and  attempted  to  chip  away 
the  ice.  It  was  a  brilliant  device,  and  would  have 
succeeded  perfectly  had  there  been  time  enough 
to  carry  on  the  experiment ;  but  after  ten  minutes 
of  assiduous  toil,  a  close  mathematical  calculation 
enabled  him  to  judge,  that,  at  the  present  rate  of 
progress,  he  would  reach  the  bottom  of  the  wedge 
on  the  fifteenth  of  July  ensuing,  by  which  time 


312  WELL  DONE. 

there  «was  every  reason  to  fear  the  kitchen  fire 
would  have  gone  out.  Some  swifter  remedy  must 
be  applied.  He  had  recourse  to  the  tea-kettle ;  but 
the  scalding  water,  while  showing  every  disposition 
to  settle  on  its  lees  and  become  ice,  showed  no 
disposition  whatever  to  induce  the  ice  to  go  into 
liquidation.  As  a  last  resort,  a  crow-bar  was 
heated  seven  times  hot,  thrust  into  the  pump,  and 
pressed  firmly  down.  A  great  commotion  ensued. 
A  fierce  volume  of  steam  ascended  to  the  skies. 
A  furious  hissing  attested  the  violence  of  the  ele 
mental  war  within.  But  the  fiery  iron  kept  on  its 
sizzling  course,  and  suddenly  with  a  great  gulp  it 
lost  its  lightness,  it  became  a  heavy  weight,  and 
the  pump  was  thawed  out. 

To  prevent  a  recurrence  of  the  trouble,  the 
pump-handle  was  carefully  tilted  up  o'  nights,  the 
pump  steadfastly  swathed  in  old  quilts,  and  a  dose 
of  salts  administered  before  the  cold  evenings  set 

o 

in,  but  every  cold  morning  showed  that  all  effort 
was  vain.  The  pump-handle  rested  on  its  re 
served  rights  and  refused  to  budge.  If  it  had  been 
left  up,  up  it  froze,  or  if  down,  down.  Every 
valve  was  stiff.  True,  the  work  of  thawing  out 
was  not  without  a  pleasing  excitement.  It  was 
like  watching  a  fairy  scene  to  see  the  cold,  dull 
iron  changing  in  the  glowing  coals  to  liquid, 
scarlet  fire,  no  longer  of  the  earth  earthy,  but  a 
child  of  the  skies,  sparkling  and  spiritual.  It  was 
like  an  adventure  of  knighthood  to  bear  it  speedily 


SUMMER  REST.  313 

yet  daintily  over  the  twenty  rods  of  icy  path  with 
out  slipping  or  scorching,  and  then  came  the  inner 
rage  as  of  some  volcanic  battle  underground,  and 
the  tightening  clasp  of  freezing,  senseless  fingers 
when  the  ice  foundations  promised  to  give  way 
and  there  was  danger  lest  the  burning  bar  should 
fall  down  the  pump  and  set  the  well  on  fire.  Still 
every  ingenuous  mind  must  see,  that  it  will  not 
do  to  suffer  a  crow-bar  to  usurp  so  large  a  place  in 
the  household  economy,  and,  with  the  great  Jew 
ish  lawgiver,  the  unhappy  young  man  often  asked 
his  affectionate  but  thirsty  family,  "  Must  I  fetch 
you  water  out  of  this  rock  —  of  ice  ?  "  So  the 
problem  of  the  hour  became  a  question  of  hy 
draulics.  Solomon  says  the  beginning  of  strife  is 
as  when  one  letteth  out  water.  But  Solomon, 
with  all  his  wisdom,  lived  in  an  unenlightened  age 
and  died  young.  Had  he  been  a  denizen  of  our 
happy  country,  had  he  pitched  his  tent  on  our 
knoll,  and  shared  the  secrets  of  our  housekeeping, 
our,  meaning  the  young  man  before  referred  to, 
his  heirs  and  ancestors  forever,  he  would  have 
offered  an  amendment  to  the  previous  resolution, 
namely,  the  beginning  of  strife  is  when  one  letteth 
on  water.  For  with  that  attempt  came  all  our 
woe.  The  point  was  to  have  easy  access  to  water. 
Should  a  ditch  be  dug,  pipes  laid,  and  the  old  well 
brought  into  the  house,  or  should  a  new  well  be 
sunk  by  our  own  hearth-stone  ?  The  old  well 
was  an  unfailing  fountain  of  soft  water.  The  new 
u 


314  SUMMER   REST. 

well  was  in  every  respect  an  uncertainty.  We 
decided  upon  the  first  plan,  and  thereupon  ensued 
the  Conflict  of  Ages. 

O  you  dwellers  in  [New  Zealand]  cities  whose 
silver-throated  naiads  spout  endless  Croton  and 
Cochituate,  O  happy  sons  of  the  mountains,  who 
have  only  to  drop  a  log  anywhere,  and  a  brook  im 
mediately  leaps  through  it,  there  are  more  things 
'twixt  the  cup  and  the  lip  than  are  dreamt  of  in 
your  philosophy. 

However  beautiful  and  healthy  is  country  life, 
it  is  a  very  serious  matter,  when  you  have  any 
great  undertaking  on  hand,  to  be  living  at  a  place 
to  which  the  nearest  point  is  twenty  miles  away. 
However,  in  the  fulness  of  time  a  man  skilled  in 
pumps  and  pipes  was  brought  over  the  twenty 
miles  to  train  up  our  wayward  Undine  in  the 
way  she  should  go.  To  our  dismay,  she  refused  to 
go  at  all.  Water  will  not  run  up  hill  unless  by 
strong  persuasion,  and  up  hill  we  indubitably  were. 
A  spirit-level,  improvised  from  a  board  and  a  glass 
of  water,  in  strict  accordance  with  the  Maine  Liq 
uor  Law,  being  brought  upon  the  witness-stand, 
deposed  and  said  that  in  our  lowest  estate  we  stood 
upon  a  level  with  the  second  story  of  the  next 
house,  and  that  no  water  would  come  for  our 
pumping,  pump  we  never  so  indefatigably.  Seeing 
is  believing,  but  I  must  confess  I  was  incredulous, 
and  to  this  day  I  find  it  hard  to  persuade  myself, 
that  every  time  I  go  into  the  garden,  I  walk  out 


WELL  DONE.  315 

of  my  neighbor's  chamber-window.  However,  the 
weight  of  evidence  was  against  me,  and  the  old 
well  was  pronounced  out  of  the  question. 

Then  a  new  well  appeared  upon  the  field  with 
a  cistern  for  its  opponent.  A  cistern  ?  Drink 
rain-water  that  has  been  standing  in  a  tub  six 
months  ?  By  no  means.  But  what  hope  to  find 
water  in  this  -gravelly  knoll,  without  boring  an 
Artesian  well?  A  meeting  was  called,  to  which 
delegates  came  from  a  sweep  of  thirty  miles. 
Science  said,  "  You  are  on  the  uplands  indeed, 
but  springs  are  as  likely  to  be  found  in  them  as 
in  the  lowlands.  There  are  higher  hills  behind 
you,  whence  the  water  may  flow  down,  and  be 
no  farther  from  the  surface  here  than  elsewhere." 
Experience  scowled  at  Science,  and  affirmed,  "  You 
can  get  your  well,  but  you  must  dig  for  it,  and 
keep  digging,  till  you  get  as  low  as  the  bottom 
of  the  other  well."  Who  shall  decide  when  doc 
tors  disagree  ?  A  marvellous  man  who  lives  in 
the  blessed  woods  of  Wycombe,  and  has  under 
ground  eyes  to  see  springs  of  water  beneath  the 
dry  land.  Thus  up  spake  noble  Faith,  and  as 
soon  as  our  Parliament  prorogued  we  ordered 
what  is  technically  termed  "  a  team,"  and  started 
for  the  blessed  woods  of  Wycombe,  and  the  man 
with  the  underground  eyes,  James  Knox  Onlis 
by  name.  Nobody  knew  the  road,  except  that 
it  ran  in  a  general  way  to  the  northwest,  so  we 
set  our  faces  steadilv  towards  the  northwest,  till 


316  SUMMER  REST. 

we  reached  the  outskirts  of  the  unexplored  re 
gions,  where  we  halted  to  take  an  observation. 
"  In  yonder  cabin,"  spake  the  patriarch  of  the 
party,  "  there  once  lived  a  family  by  the  name 
of  Onlis.  Perhaps  our  Seer  may  be  a  descend 
ant  at  the  fifth  or  sixth  remove.  Suppose  we 
inquire."  I  at  once  alighted  and  approached  the 
front  gate.  It  had  apparently  never  been  opened 
since  the  lamented  decease  of  the  original  proprie 
tor,  and  was  not  to  be  opened  now.  A  side-gate 
was  fastened  by  an  ingenious  arrangement  of  sticks 
and  strings,  so  complicated  that  it  seemed  easier 
to  scale  the  wall  than  to  attempt  to  loosen  them. 
Gaining  thus  the  freedom  of  the  yard,  I  trod 
tentatively  and  cautiously  around  the  house  to  the 
back-door.  It  was  open,  but  a  chair  lying  length 
wise  barred  the  entrance,  and  a  very  ancient  and 
fish-like  smell  melted  on  the  autumn  air.  A  re 
spectful  rap  brought  out  a  pretty  young  woman 
in  a  somewhat  tattered  gown,  but  with  gold  beads 
around  her  neck.  "  Can  you  tell  me  if  Mr.  James 
Knox  Onlis  lives  here?"  No,  he  did  not,  —  to  my 
great  relief,  —  he  lived  about  three  miles  farther, 
beyond  the  river.  Three  miles  were  cheerily 
passed,  the  river  crossed,  and  again  we  tarried  in 
pursuit  of  knowledge.  A  horseman  was  watering 
his  horse  at  the  running  river,  —  brook  perhaps 
it  might  be  called,  if  one  were  not  ambitious. 
"  Can  you  tell  me  where  Mr.  James  Knox  Onlis 
lives  ?  " 


WELL  DONE.  317 

"  Just  about  three  quarters  of  a  mile  from  here. 
You  must  turn  to  the  right,  then  to  the  left,  then 
go  into  a  lane  and  up  the  hill,  and  you  are  right 
on  it."  Following  his  directions  we  soon  found 
the  house. 

"  Does  Mr.  James  Knox  Onlis  live  here  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he  does." 

44  Is  he  at  home." 

"No,  he  isn't." 

"  Can  you  tell  me  where  he  is  ?  " 

"  Well,  down  on  the  Agawam  road.  You 
must  go  back  to  the  main  road,  then  turn  and 
go  past  the  ropewalk  till  you  come  to  a  yellow 
house  on  the  left-hand  side.  lie  is  there." 

"  You  are  quite  sure  I  shall  find  him  there  ?  " 

"  O  yes,  he  is  there.  He  was  going  to  be  there 
all  day." 

So  we  plod  on,  passing  the  ropewalk,  but  there 
is  no  yellow  house,  and  then  another  ropewalk  and 
another  half-mile,  and  the  yellow  house  shines  in 
the  slanting  sunlight.  A  stalwart,  honest-looking 
man  is  just  driving  a  loaded  wagon  into  the  yard. 
I  alight  and  accost  him.  "  Is  Mr.  James  Knox 
Onlis  here  ?  " 

44  Well  he  has  been  here,  but  he  went  away 
about  half  an  hour  ago." 

44  Do  you  know  where  he  went  ?  " 

44  No,  I  don't  exactly.  lie  did  n't  know 
whether  he  should  go  home  or  to  Agawam." 

Aroused  by  the  voices,  two  heads  appeal'  above 


318  SUMMER  REST. 

a  high  board  fence  half  a  dozen  yards  away.  One 
belongs  to  a  young  man,  and  one  to  an  elderly 
one,  whereupon  the  colloquy  takes  on  a  fourfold 
character. 

"  Did  you  ever  hear  that  Mr.  James  Knox 
Onlis  can  tell  where  water  is  to  be  found?"  A 
suppressed  giggle  from  the  young  head  above  the 
fence. 

"  Well,  he  does  do  that  business  sometimes, 
when  folks  want  him  to." 

"  Is  he  generally  successful  ?  " 
"  Well,  he  most  always  hits  on  the  square." 
u  Is  he  a  good  deal  engaged  just  now  ?  " 
"  Well,  no,  I  do'  know  's  he  is  particTly." 
"  Would  there  be  any  probability  of  my  being 
able  to  engage  his  services  at  once  ?  " 

"  Well,  yes,  I  think  like  's  not  you  might." 
"  As  I  did  not  meet  him  on  the  way  here,  is  it 
not  probable  that  he  is  gone  to  Agawam  ?  " 

"  He  's  gone  to  Egypt  to  buy  corn,"  says  the 
young  head  above  the  fence. 

"And  where  is  Egypt?"  I  ask. 
"  'T  an't   nowhere.     There  's  no  such   place," 
says  my  stalwart  friend  confidentially  in  an  under 
tone.     "  He  's   gone   to  Agawam   to   get   stores. 
That 's  where  he  was  going." 

"  Perhaps  I  could  find  him  at  some  of  the 
shops?" 

44  Well,  he  most  generally  goes  to  Knightman's 
or  Wheelill's.  Likely  enough  he  '11  be  in  one  of 
them  very  places." 


WELL  DONE.  319 

"  And  we  are  to  keep  on  this  road  ?  " 

"  Yes,  this  will  take  you  right  to  Agawam.  He 
will  be  there  or  on  the  road  somewhere,  —  unless 
lie  goes  down  by  Lampboy's  to  buy  some  hay ; 
though  he  said,  I  remember  now,  that  perhaps  he 
should  come  round  the  other  road  to  see  his  sister." 

"  Can  you  tell  me  any  way  by  which  I  shall 
know  him  ?  " 

"  Well,  he  has  a  black  horse  and  buggy." 

"  And  looks  just  like  me,"  says  the  elderly 
head  over  the  fence. 

"  And  has  a  young  man  with  him,"  says  my 
stalwart  friend. 

"  With  black  hair  and  whiskers,"  says  the  elder 
ly  head. 

"  And  two  firkins  and  a  can  in  the  wagon," 
adds  the  young  head. 

Thus  replete  with  valuable  and  exact  informa 
tion,  we  resumed  our  journey,  setting  our  faces 
towards  Agawam,  three  miles  farther  on,  and 
keeping  a  sharp  lookout 

1.  For  all  black  horses  and  buggies. 

2.  For  all  black  hair  and  whiskers. 

3.  For  all  heads  like  the  elderly  head  above  the 
fence. 

4.  For  two  firkins  and  a  can. 

So  we  rode  and  rode  and  rode  through  the 
beautiful  Indian  summer,  the  warm  soft  air  fall 
ing  and  floating  around  us  in  a  haze  of  dreamy 
delight,  all  the  roses  of  June  deepening  in  the 


320  SUMMER  REST. 

ruddy  woods,  all  the  violets  of  May  purpling  in 
the  distant  hills,  Spring  pouring  her  tender  promise 
and  Summer  her  perfect  splendor  into  the  lap  of 
this  gorgeous  autumn  queen,  till,  betwixt  the  glory 
of  the  skies  above  and  the  glory  of  the  earth 
beneath,  this  whole  round  world  became  a  palace 
of  dainty  delights.  Kind  Heaven !  that  is  ever 
mixing  honey  with  the  bitter  draught  of  life,  that 
makes  the  path  of  our  lowliest  duties  a  via  sacra 
for  our  souls. 

So  we  drove  lordlily  into  Agawam,  as  beseems 
monarchs  of  so  fair  a  realm  ;  and  there  at  the 
door  of  the  first  grocery-shop  stood  the  black 
horse  and  buggy  that  had  hitherto  so  persistently 
eluded  us,  and  there,  too,  the  cabalistic  words 
brought  to  light  the  ever  approached  yet  always 
receding  James  Knox  Onlis,  whom  we  had  begun 
to  regard  as  some  shadowy  myth,  cloud-born  and 
cloud  dissolving,  but  who  appeared  before  our  eyes, 
a  man  of  mortal  mould,  and  promised  in  very 
human  fashion  to  unravel  for  us  the  riddles  of 
the  deep  earth  betimes  the  next  morning,  and  in 
very  on-human  fashion  kept  his  promise. 

Herein  is  a  marvellous  thing ;  for  this  man 
affirms  that  he  possesses  a  power  whose  nature  he 
does  not  understand,  of  whose  origin  he  knows 
nothing,  over  which  he  exercises  no  control,  whose 
working  he  only  partially  comprehends,  whose 
existence  he  but  accidentally  discovered.  The 
assumed  facts  are,  that  water  flows  through  the 


WELL  DONE.  321 

earth  in  veins  at  unequal  distances  from  its  surface, 
and  when  he  crosses  one  of  these  veins,  a  little 
upward  curving  rod  in  his  hand  is  forced  and 
twisted  by  some  occult  influence  till  it  bends 
downward.  The  material  of  the  rod  is  unimpor 
tant.  Witch-hazel  is  the  best  substance,  but  any 
common  wood  obeys  the  hidden  law.  Our  experi 
menter  brought  the  fragment  of  an  ordinary  bar 
rel-hoop,  and  began  at  once  to  walk  around  the 
house,  clasping  it  lightly  in  both  hands  at  each 
end,  his  palms  turned  upward.  I  followed  him 
steadfastly  to  see  what  was  to  be  seen.  He  paced 
slowly  and  watchfully  hither  and  thither,  and 
presently  the  hoop  gave  an  indubitable  twist. 
"  Here  is  water."  He  crossed  and  recrossed  to 
find  the  general  -direction  of  the  vein,  since,  ac 
cording  to  his  theory,  no  effect  is  produced  when 
walking  along  its  course,  though  he  may  be  di 
rectly  over  it.  But  the  water  did  not  flow  to 
suit  our  convenience,  and  he  resumed  his  search, 
soon  discovering  another  vein  which  branched  off 
from  the  first,  and  made  directly  for  our  kitchen 
in  the  most  obliging  manner.  Here  he  planted 
his  stake  and  took  measurements.  His  scale  not 
being  yet  perfected,  he  is  unable  to  give  exact 
results,  but  after  sundry  manoeuvres  with  pebbles 
and  paper,  he  pronounced  our  spring  to  be  from 
twenty  to  twenty-two  feet  below  the  surface. 
This  was  so  favorable  a  view  of  the  case,  that  we 
were  inclined  to  adopt  it. 

H*  u 


322  SUMMER   REST. 

"  For  so  to  interpose  a  little  ease, 
Let  our  vain  thoughts  dally  (even)  with  false  surmise." 

Having  then  made  his  professional  discoveries, 
he  made  a  few  more  "  for  fun,"  and  pointed  out 
several  places  where  water  could  be  found.  So 
that,  if  we  should  ever  become  addictetl  to  well- 
digging,  we  should  know  just  where  to  begin, 
and  in  fact  could  turn  our  farm  into  a  sponge  on 
very  short  notice. 

His  power,  or  his  passion  one  might  perhaps 
as  well  say,  for  he  seems  to  be  less  acting  than 
acted  upon,  is  not  confined  to  water,  but  extends 
to  metal.  By  it  he  can  discover  gold  and  silver 
money  hidden  on  floor  or  in  field.  Unfortunately 
for  our  experiments  at  the  present  time,  the  gold 
must  exist,  before  he  can  discover  it,  which  very 
seriously  restricts  active  operations.  A  half-dollar, 
under  one  of  twenty  sheets  of  paper  laid  on  the 
carpet  this  lively  little  wand  points  out.  Accord 
ing  to  his  theorizing,  lightning  always  strikes 
above  these  water-courses,  so  that  a  house  stand 
ing  between  two  of  them  would  be  safe  without 
lightning-rods.  He  once  visited  a  house  where 
a  person  had  been  killed  by  lightning,  and  after 
making  examination  he  said,  "  I  do  not  know 
whether  he  was  in  the  front  or  back  room,  but 
he  must  have  been  standing  somewhere  on  this 
line,"  and  the  bystanders  confirmed  his  decision. 
His  discovery  of  the  possession  of  this  faculty  was, 
as  1  have  said,  accidental,  if  we  may  use  the 


WELL  DONE. 

term.  A  number  of  persons  were  discussing  the 
possibility  of  this  power,  which,  if  it  exists,  is 
very  rarely  possessed,  and  were  trying  experi 
ments  with  the  witch-hazel  rods.  He  refused  to 
try,  believing  it  to  be  mere  superstition,  and 
even  declared  that  he  should  be  ashamed  to  be 
seen  walking  around  with  a  stick  in  that  way. 
But  several  days  afterwards,  he  happened  to  see 
one  of  these  rods  lying  on  the  ground,  and,  as 
nobody  'was  m  siyht,  from  mere  curiosity  he  took 
it  up  and  tried  the  experiment,  which,  to  his 
astonishment  was  completely  successful,  showing 
that  he  possessed  the  power  in  very  large  meas 
ure.  He  had  been  called  upon  several  times 
when  persons  had  dug  in  vain  lor  wells,  and  had 
never  failed  to  make  their  dry  lands  evolve 
springs  of  water.  Out  of  twenty  wells,  whose 
depth  he  had  previously  reckoned,  he  had  been 
told  the  average  variation  from  his  measurements 
had  been  less  than  one  foot.  But  he  acknowl 
edged  frankly,  that  he  did  not  always  estimate  so 
accurately.  This  was  his  own  story. 

We  had  taken  our  measures  so  promptly,  after 
having  decided  upon  them,  that  we  had  quite 
stolen  a  march  upon  our  neighbors;  but  the  thing 
was  not  long  hid  under  a  bushel,  and  the  little 
currents  of  remark  soon  began  to  flow  quietly  but 
significantly.  It  was  a  very  nice  study  in  mental 
philosophy  to  mark  them,  as  thev  varied  from  a 
gentle  compassion  to  open  ridicule,  —  open  but 


324  SUMMER  REST. 

not  very  violent,  even  from  those  who  were  most 
disposed  to  use  it,  for  the  conclusion  of  the  matter 
was  so  near  at  hand,  that  even  those  sublimely 
superior  to  superstition  thought  it  not  wise  to 
make  any  marked  demonstration  which  might  by 
chance- — of  course  it  could  be  by  chance  alone  — 
redound  to  their  own  discomfiture. 

"  You  have  been  consulting  a  diviner,  I  under 
stand,"  drawls  Elegant  Leisure,  —  on  whom  I  now 
wreak  revenge.  "  Do  you  design  to  preserve  the 
wrand  of  enchantment  for  future  generations  to 
venerate  as  Aaron's  rod  was  laid  away  for  the 
Jews?" 

"  Going  to  have  your  well  stoned,  as  well  as 
dug,  by  mesmerism,"  haw-haws  practical  Common 
Sense,  who  is  to  be  imposed  upon  by  no  old- 
wives'  fables. 

"  I  don't  believe  in  it,"  says  Metaphysics,  stout 
ly,  —  Metaphysics,  who  accepts  any  quantity  of 
incomprehensible  sesquipedalian  theory  about  the 
mind,  and  very  safely  too,  since  nobody  can 
say  whether  it  is  true  or  false,  —  "I  don't  be 
lieve  in  it.  If  it  is  ever  true  of  any  man,  he  is 
to  be  pitied.  He  is  an  unfortunate  man.  Send 
him  to  the  Lunatic  Asylum,  or  to  the  Massachu 
setts  General  Hospital.  It  is  disease." 

Convinced  that  success  would  be  the  best  refu 
tation,  we  held  our  peace  and  longed  for  the  ad 
vent  of  the  well-digger. 

It  was    Saturday  when   the  "  diviner "  left  us, 


WELL  DONE.  325 

and  Monday  the  well  was  to  be  begun.  But 
Monday  came  and  another  Monday,  and  Monday 
still  again,  and  brought  no  well-diggers.  We  were 
not  surprised.  The  only  thing  that  surprises  us  is 
to  have  workmen  come  when  they  say  they  will. 
If  our  experience  is  at  all  indicative  of  the  state 
of  public  morals,  there  is  a  lamentable  infidelity 
to  engagements  among  manual  laborers.  They 
do  not  recognize  the  sacredness  of  their  word. 
They  do  not  comprehend  the  nature  of  a  pledge. 
They  make  it  and  break  it  with  equal  readiness. 
Whether  it  be  to  build  a  house  or  trim  a  tree, 
or  mend  a  door,  or  make  a  window,  or  pay  a  debt, 
or  bring  a  load  of  wood,  or  finish  a  dress,  you  can 
not  depend  upon  its  being  done  at  the  appointed 
time.  They  will  agree  to  your  plans  with  oblig 
ing  alacrity  and  carry  them  out  at  their  own  sweet 
will.  I  do  not  see  in  this  respect,  the  smallest 
difference  between  the  church  and  the  world.  Six 
years  ago  a  church-member  promised  to  haul  us  a 
load  of  coal  before  Thanksgiving,  and  it  has  not 
yet  appeared,  nor  been  heard  from.  Five  years 
ao-o  another  church-member  entered  into  a  similar 

& 

engagement  with  similar  results.  Yet  both  these 
persons  still  continue  to  adorn  the  doctrine  of  God 
their  Saviour  by  a  well-ordered  life  and  conversa 
tion,  so  far  as  ecclesiastical  eyes  discern.  I  know 
one  unhappy  man  who  belongs  to  two  churches,  and 
between  them  he  does  not  seem  to  have  any  moral 
sense  left.  He  cannot  wait  for  temptation,  but 


326  SUMMER   REST. 

hastens  to  forswear  himself  spontaneously.  Ap 
parently  his  perception  is  quite  bewildered,  and  he 
sees  no  distinction  between  "I  go  "  and  " I  go 
not."  He  might  with  great  propriety  adopt  the 
Brahminic  riddle,  which  is  no  riddle  to  him,  — 

"  Far  or  forgot  to  me  is  near, 
Sunlight  and  shadow  are  the  same, 
To  me  the  vanished  gods  appear, 
And  one  to  me  are  shame  and  fame." 

And  we  sound  Evangelical  Christians  talk  about 
the  "  merely  moral  man."  Merely  moral !  As  if 
morality  were  a  common  thing,  to  be  lightly  es 
timated  in  the  general  sum  of  human  character, 
and  not  rather  the  solid  earth  beneath  our  feet, 
without  which  the  heavens  above  would  be  of  no 
account  to  us.  Merely  moral !  Happy  the  day 
when  the  world  shall  have  grown  so  rich  in  Chris 
tian  graces  that  it  can  afford  to  leave  morality  out 
of  the  reckoning;  but  the  infant  born  this  hour 
will  not  live  to  see  it.  Meanwhile,  and  to  hasten 
its  advent,  let  us  preach  morality  side  by  side  with 
religion,  and  preach  it  with  such  clearness  and 
fervor,  that,  if  men  will  sin,  they  shall  sin  with 
malice  aforethought  and  their  eyes  open,  and  not 
from  ignorance  and  a  befogged  vision,  as  they  un 
doubtedly  often  do  now.  Pulpit  teaching  ought 
to  lay  hold  on  a  man's  conscience  with  so  close  a 
clutch,  with  so  unyielding  a  grasp,  that  he  cannot 
escape  from  them  without  rending  his  conscience 
and  leaving  it  all  torn  and  bleeding  with  an  cter- 


WELL  DONE.  327 

nal  wound,  —  only  let  them  be  the  teachings  of 
the  Gospel,  not  of  prejudice  or  ignorance.  Justi 
fication,  sanctification,  election,  atonement,  —  let 
them  all  be  discussed,  but  especially  let  their  con 
nection  with  a  man's  business  character  be  made 
clear.  It  is  not  enough  to  lay  down  abstract  prop 
ositions.  Men  will  assent  to  them  promptly,  and 
go  straightway  and  violate  the  law  that  is  in  them, 
and  disregard  the  principle  that  underlies  them, 
without  even  knowing  it.  The  preacher  ought  to 
make  the  applications,  to  bring  down  the  Gospel  to 
life,  to  bring  up  life  to  the  Gospel ;  to  show  exactly 
what  the  first  demands,  and  where  the  second 
fails ;  to  instruct  workingmen  and  women,  as  we 
all  are,  or  ought  to  be,  how  to  make  the  whole 
week  bear  fruits  to  God  in  our  most  common 
words  and  ways.  And  especially  let  all  clergy 
men  and  teachers  whatever  recognize  and  teach, 
that  truthfulness  lies  at  the  bottom  of  character, 
without  which  none  is  utterly  pure,  with  which 
none  is  utterly  corrupt. 

Does  this  seem  to  you  a  digression,  Messieurs 
New-Zealanders  ?  Not  in  the  least.  It  is  a  way 
we  had  in  those  old  times  of  speaking  a  word  in 
season  and  out  of  season ;  and  as  this,  moreover, 
is  but  a  brief  recapitulation  of  the  thoughts  which 
shortened  a  long  walk  to  the  well-digger's,  the  most 
enlightened  of  you  cannot  fail  to  see  that  even  ar 
tistically  it  is  quite  in  the  line  of  my  argument. 
Not  that  I  proposed  to  deliver  any  such  lecture  as 


328  SUMMER  REST. 

this  to  our  delinquent  gnome.  In  the  first  place, 
illness  or  a  misunderstanding  might  show  that 
there  was  no  delinquency.  In  the  second  place, 
it  is  not  so  easy  a  matter  to  tell  a  man  what  you 
think  about  certain  things  which  he  may  be  sup 
posed  to  have  done  or  have  failed  to  do.  It  is 
all  very  well  to  put  ministers  up  to  doing  duty, 
but  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  do  it  yourself. 
Besides,  in  our  free  and  beloved  country  one  must 
walk  warily  if  his  progress  shall  be  unimpeded. 
However  eloquent  he  waxes  in  the  bosom  of  his 
family  over  the  right-hand  fallings  off  and  left-hand 
defections  of  his  brethren,  he  will  hardly  find  his  ac 
count  in  obtruding  his  eloquence,  for  his  own  satis 
faction,  upon  those  brethren.  So,  as  I  walked  over 
the  hills  and  far  away,  I  improved  each  shining 
hour  in  improvising  some  inoffensive  speech  which 
should  satisfactorily  account  for  my  appearance. 
The  crops,  the  weather,  and  the  fears  of  future 
rains  which  should  spoil  our  well  by  swelling  the 
shallow  springs,  were  all  dismissed  in  favor  of  an 
anxiety  lest  illness  might  have  prevented  the  un 
dertaking.  In  this  defensive  armor  I  presented 
myself  at  the  well-digger's  house;  but  his  house 
took  no  cognizance  of  his  whereabouts,  only  recom 
mending  the  barn  as  a  hopeful  place  for  further 
research.  To  the  barn  accordingly  I  turned,  pick 
ing  my  way  carefully  among  the  great  heaps  of 
corn  not  yet  stripped  of  its'  swaddling-clothes, 
under  the  withered  grape-vines  that  had  borne 


WELL  DONE.  329 

their  rich  burdens  bounteously,  and  were  now 
resting  from  their  labors,  fragrant  still  and  not 
without  a  certain  crisp  loveliness,  as  the  yellow 
sunshine  floated  softly  through  them  and  the  ten 
der  breeze  rustled  them  in  cooing  melody ;  and 
sweetly  sung  to  my  charmed  ear  those  rich  lines 
of  old  Andrew  Marvell,  — 

"  What  wondrous  life  is  this  I  lead ! 
Ripe  apples  drop  about  my  head  ; 
The  luscious  clusters  of  the  vine 
Upon  my  mouth,do  crush  their  wine ; 
The  nectarine  and  curious  peach 
Into  my  hand  themselves  do  reach,"  — 

past  huge  piles  of  wood,  rough  enough  to  such  as 
should  see  only  their  straggling  outline,  nor  know 
the  blessings  that  lay  deep  hidden  in  each  rugged 
pile,  —  warmth  for  chill  and  rest  for  weariness, 
fireside  talk,  the  crooning  of  old  stories,  the  prat 
tle  from  child-lips,  the  purr  of  the  comfortable  cat, 
foam  of  cider  and  fragrance  of  apples,  home-com 
forts,  neighborly  cheer,  and  boundless  hospitality 
for  the  wayfarer  against  the  long  frost-bound  even 
ings  that  lay  in  ambush  behind  golden  sunshine 
and  dusky  grapes,  and  could  not  discern  in  each 
shapeless  mass  the  beautiful,  insidious  foe  that 
should  steal  away  their  sharpness  ere  they  were 
aware,  and  thrill  the  heart  of  December  with  the 
glow  and  gladness  of  June.  And  still  as  I  trod 
cautiously  the  hens  stared  at  me  and  stepped  aside, 
not  too  far.  And  the  gray  gander  left  his  harem 
and  pursued  me  valiantly  with  level  neck  and  fe- 


330  SUMMER  REST. 

-rocious  hiss,  and  the  turkey-gobbler  strutted  and 
sidled  up  to  me,  scraping  the  ground  with  the  tips 
of  his  bristling  wings,  and  boasting  his  prowess 
with  most  unmusical  gobble.  Thus  attended,  I 
came  suddenly  upon  the  harvesters.  The  broad 
barn  doors  were  flung  wide  open  to  the  flooding 
southern  sunshine,  and  the  laborers  sat  half  hidden 
among  heaps  of  stalks  and  unhusked  corn,  sturdily 
stripping  off  the  shrivelled  glume  with  steadfast, 
brawny  hands,  —  all  but  he  whom  I  sought.  In 
quiring  for  him,  I  wras  directed  aloft ;  and  there, 
half-way  up  the  high  ladder,  well  on  towards  the 
great  beam,  was  the  hale  old  man,  bearing  his 
eight  and  seventy  years  as  blithely  as  a  boy  his 
dozen  summers.  My  questions  died  on  my  lips 
in  mute  surprise.  You  cannot  anxiously  inquire 
after  a  man's  health  when  he  is  frisking  like  a 
squirrel  before  your  eyes,  so  I  changed  my  tac 
tics  on  the  instant,  and  only  made  some  com 
monplace  salutation  to  attract  his  attention,  sup 
posing  naturally  enough  that  he  would  descend  on 
seeing  me  to  a  convenient  table-land  for  conver 
sation,  and  so  give  me  time  to  collect  my  resources. 
But  he  had  no  notion  of  permitting  the  serious 
business  of  life  to  be  interrupted  by  a  little  wrhip- 
per-snapper  like  me  ;  he  just  glanced  back  over  his 
shoulder,  went  on  up  his  ladder,  and  scrambled 
over  upon  the  scaffold  as  unconcernedly  as  if  but 
a  little  browrn  mouse  had  startled  out  of  the  corn, 
and  the  men  from  their  mounds  below  began  to 


WELL  DONE.  331 

pitch  up  great  forkfuls  of  stalks  which  the  old 
man  caught  and  arranged  deftly,  and  all  the  while 
we  talked  the  dust  of  the  lively  corn-husks  came 
floating  down  into  my  eyes  and  face  upturned  at 
an  angle  of  about  eighty  degrees  to  the  dimly  out 
lined  figure  upon  the  scaffold.  But  as  soon  as  the 
gander  ceased  to  hiss,  and  the  turkey  gave  over 
gobbling,  I  managed  to  insinuate  a  question  about 
the  future  prospects  of  the  well.  "  You  do'  want 
no  well  at  present,"  spoke  the  handsome,  black- 
eyed  son  from  his  cereal  pile,  and  extinguished  me 
at  once.  I  had  thought  all  the  time  that  we  did 
want  a  well  very  much.  In  fact,  it  was  solely 
owing  to  this  mental  hallucination  that  I  had 
taken  my  walks  abroad  that  very  morning.  But 
the  old  man  above  benevolently  came  to  the  res 
cue  with  an  assurance  that  the  well  should  be 
dug  all  in  good  time,  but  his  hired  man  had  been 
sick  three  weeks,  and  his  work  was  all  behind 
hand.  You  could  dig  wells  when  you  could 
not  get  in  grain,  and  of  course  he  must  har 
vest  his  crops.  But,  I  said,  I  feared  the  rains 
would  come  so  heavily  as  to  fill  the  springs  and 
our  well  would  fail  in  the  dry  season. 

"  O,  don't  you  worry,"  he  sang  out  cheerily, 
never  pausing  in  his  work,  "  I  know  all  about  it. 
I  've  dug  more  wells  than  any  man  in  the  county. 
A  shallow  spring  might  rise,  but  deep  wells  like 
yours  won't  be  touched  this  month.  By  the  time 
we  get  down  three  feet  you  '11  see.  Did  n't  you 
ever  make  dough  for  your  chickens  ?  " 


332  SUMMER  REST. 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  brightening  up  with  pleasure  at 
touching  on  familiar  ground. 

"  Well,  you  know  how  the  meal  drinks  up 
the  water.  Now  the  earth  is  an  ash-heap,  and 
swallows  up  the  rain  just  like  Indian  meal.  That 
Jast  storm  we  had  did  n't  wet  down  an  inch  in  my 
field." 

It  would  have  been  a  very  remarkable  rain  if 
it  had.  Farmers  will  often  allow  that  a  timely 
shower  has  freshened  the  grass,  but  in  the  whole 
course  of  a  long  and  eventful  life,  I  do  not  think 
I  ever  heard  a  farmer  in  a  dry  time  admit  that 
any  rain,  however  profuse  and  protracted,  had  wet 
down  to  his  potatoes !  So  cavalierly  do  we  receive 
the  good  gifts  of  the  Good  Giver. 

Then  I  told  him  that  I  had  met  his  son  on  the 
way,  who  had  begged  me  to  ask  him  to  make  a 
new  pump  for  a  wayside  well,  that  had  been  long 
disused,  but  was  now  needed  in  the  general 
drought ;  but  I  added,  with  miserable  selfishness, 
I  hoped  he  would  dig  our  well  first,  we  had  been 
waiting  so  long. 

"  O,  I  know  that  pump,  I  made  it  myself.  It 
was  the  first  one  I  ever  made.  I  sha'n't  hurry. 
They  've  done  without  twenty  years,  I  guess  they 
can  wait  a  spell  longer.  I  sha'n't  meddle  with  it  till 
I  've  dug  your  well.  My  folks  don't  want  me  to 
dig  wells.  That 's  what  the  talk  about  the  pump  's 
for."  It  could  hardly  be  wondered  at  that  his 
"  folks  "  should  desire  him  not  to  engage  in  this 


WELL  DONE.  333 

hard  and  hazardous  work,  but  it  was  plain  to  see 
that  he  had  no  design  of  gratifying  them.  His  eye 
was  not  dim,  nor  his  natural  strength  abated.  Life 
and  health  and  heart  were  stout  within  him,  and 
he  scorned  to  give  up  his  firm  foothold  on  the  ac 
tive  world.  Wise  man  I  Work  is  the  sole  pre 
servative.  I  came  away  reassued,  though  it  is  hard 
to  say  on  precisely  what  grounds,  for  the  most 
definite  report  I  could  take  home  amounted  to  no 
more  than  that  he  would  come  when  he  got  ready, 
which  we  suspected  before. 

But  come  they  did,  man  and  horse,  pick  and 
pulley,  shovel  and  scoop, —  how  wonderful  it  is,  the 
time  and  trouble  and  tools,  the  science  and  skill  it 
takes  to  do  things.  Certainly  a  well  is  nothing 
remarkable,  yet  you  must  know  how,  or  you  can 
no  more  make  a  well  than  you  can  make  a  world. 
But  these  people  knew  how.  They  just  drew  a 
circle  on  the  greensward,  and  cut  out  a  deep 
round  hole  as  clean  and  regular  as  the  hole  in  a 
doughnut  before  it  is  cooked ;  no  jagging  into  the 
turf,  no  scattering  about  of  stones  and  soil,  but 
a  round  hole  constantly  deepening,  a  pyramidal 
mound  constantly  rising.  Merrily,  merrily  went 
they  down,  burrowing  in  the  earth  like  so  many 
moles,  and  came  up  all  smeared  with  sand  and 
loam,  kobolds,  goblins,  with  a  human  trick  of  the 
voice,  and  many  an  underground  jest;  down  and 
down  thirteen  feet  the  first  day,  and  then  they 
struck  the  hard  clay  and  made  only  three  feet  the 


334  SUMMER   REST. 

second  day,  and  three  feet  more,  and  still  three 
more,  —  twenty,  twenty-one,  twenty-two;  and,  O 
heavens!  there  was  no  water!  and  slowly,  slowly, 
with  pick-axe  and  platform,  down,  down  — 

Twenty-three  feet,  twenty-four  feet,  twenty-five 
feet,  still  dry  land.  O  Science,  O  Philosophy,  O 
Mystery,  where  were  ye,  nymphs? 

Twenty-six  feet,  —  O  that  we  had  not  been  so 
strenuous  for  a  deep  well,  but  could  have  con 
tented  ourselves  with  a  shallow  one  ! 

Twenty-seven  feet,  —  to  think  how  fearful  we 
had  been  lest  autumn  rains  should  swell  surface 
streams  to  fallacious  size,  and  now  my  kingdom 
for  the  shallowest  stream ! 

Twenty-eight  feet,  —  and  a  thread  of  water 
comes  trickling  tardily  in  six  feet  behind  time,  a 
little  better  than  nothing,  from  the  predicted  quar 
ter,  true ;  but  anybody  would  know  if  it  ran  at  all 
it  would  run  down  hill. 

Twenty-nine  feet,  and  the  merry  rills  come 
dancing  in  from  all  sides  in  a  frolic  of  freedom. 

Thirty  feet,  and  there  is  a  basin  of  water,  yel 
low,  thick  and  clayey,  but  soft  and  promising  to  be 
plenteous,  and  we  will  go  no  farther. 

O,  but  then  did  not  the  wiseacres  glorify  them 
selves  over  us  poor  slaves  of  superstition,  dupes 
of  a  wily  adventurer?  Now  where  is  your  di 
viner,  where  your  magnetism  and  your  electri 
city  ?  Water  is  there  truly,  but  water  is  every 
where  if  one  but  digs  deep  enough.  Might  Jcnoiv 


WELL  DONE.  335 

there  was  nothing  in  it !  Absurd  to  suppose  a 
man  could  tell  what  there  was  ten  feet  under 
him  through  the  solid  earth ! 

I  have  thought  much  lately  about  Friar  Bacon, — 
the  light  that  shone  out  of  the  darkness  six  hun 
dred  years  ago,  and  could  not  dissipate  it  because 
its  time  was  not  yet  come ;  the  great  sad  soul  that 
wrought  in  speechless  solitude,  wooing  Nature  in 
her  fastnesses,  studying  the  secrets  of  the  mind, 
and  trying  to  fling  somewhat  of  the  brightness  of 
his  mountain  heights  down  upon  the  glooming 
valleys  below,  —  and  himself  flung  into  prison  for 
his  pains.  O,  I  hope  that  somewhere,  somewhere 
in  some  pleasant,  strange,  curious  world,  Friar 
Bacon  is  still  studying  with  all  heavenly  helps 
the  mysteries  of  the  universe,  and  that  love  and 
friendship,  and  every  tender,  human  solace,  and 
every  Divine  benignity,  make  amends  a  thousand 
fold  for  that  short,  cold,  and  bitter-sweet  earth- 
dream  of  his !  But  the  spirit  that  imprisoned 
Roger  Bacon  is  still  abroad  upon  the  earth.  It 
came  down  our  way  last  fall,  toothless  and  fang- 
less  now,  thank  Heaven !  but  grinning  horribly 
writh  its  old  hate,  and  showing  what  it  would  do, 
had  not  time  destroyed  its  power  to  hurt.  Yet 
it  ought  to  be  dead.  There  was  an  excuse  for 
the  men  who  imprisoned  Roger  Bacon.  How 
should  they  know  that  the  sulphurous  and  so 
norous  gunpowder  was  not  set  on  fire  of  hell  ? 
Living  a  life  of  the  senses,  and  that  in  its  grossest 


336  SUMMER  REST. 

forms,  how  should  they  believe  in  unseen,  unheard, 
impalpable  material  forces  ?  But  Friar  Bacon  has 
lived,  and  labored,  and  died.  The  earth  has  been 
weighed,  the  moon  measured,  the  clouds  plun 
dered,  the  sea  spanned,  the  depths  uncovered. 
Hidden  powers  have  been  tracked  to  their  lairs 
and  forced  into  human  service.  We  have  gone 
but  a  little  way  into  the  kingdom  of  our  inher 
itance  ;  we  have,  as  it  were,  but  crossed  the 
threshold  of  our  palace,  and  every  step  has 
showed  it  to  be  a  treasure-house  of  mysteries ; 
yet  now  we  are  to  recoil  with  contempt  from 
one  mystery  the  more!  Believing  so  much  as 
we  do  of  physical  science,  how  passing  strange 
it  is  that  the  trained  reason  of  any  man  can 
reject  without  examination,  and  ridicule  without 
misgiving,  anything  which  claims  to  belong  to 
its  domain  !  What  is  the  element  of  absurdity 
in  this  water  attraction  that  does  not  equally 
inhere  in  electricity  or  magnetism  ?  Who  that 
believes  in  the  American  Telegraph  or  the  Mar 
iner's  Compass  can  afford  to  scoff  at  the  hazel- 
rod?  We  have  seen,  or  might  have  seen,  that  the 
greatest  and  most  beneficent  discoveries  and  in 
ventions  have  had  an  apparently  puerile  origin. 
A  falling  apple,  a  steaming  tea-kettle,  a  dead  frog, 
a  child's  kite,  have  not  done  so  little  of  our  drudg 
ery  for  us,  and  so  little  added  to  our  sum  of  knowl 
edge,  that  we  can  safely  despise  even  a  barrel  hoop. 
Contempt,  contumely,  violent  opposition,  have  been 


WELL  DONE.  337 

the  foster-mothers  of  some  of  the  most  useful  arts 
that  now  bless  the  human  race,  and  it  would  seem 
to  be  the  part  of  a  wise  man  to  wait  before  pro 
nouncing  adverse  judgment.  I  am  speaking  now, 
not  at  ah1  of  evidence,  but  of  intrinsic  probabil 
ity;  and  I  affirm  that,  apart  from  any  evidence, 
there  is  no  more  absurdity  or  improbability  in 
Bietonism  than  in  Magnetism  or  Galvanism. 

But  though  the  theory  is  so  strong  that  we  can 
discard  the  evidence,  on  the  other  hand  the  evi 
dence  is  so  strong  that  we  can  dismiss  the  theory. 
When  our  world  pointed  its  slowly  moving  finger 
of  scorn  at  us,  we  bore  it  awhile  patiently,  and  then 
bestirred  ourselves  to  make  defence.  We  found 
that  the  matter  was  one  of  sufficient  scientific 
research  to  have  received  a  name.  Bietonism 
stands  in  Webster  in  equal  honor  with  the  other 
isms.  That  is  surely  a  fair  introduction  to  good 
society.  Admitting  that  our  own  experiment  was 
a  comparative  failure,  —  an  entire  failure  in  re 
spect  of  the  distance  computed  and  not  a  certain 
success  in  respect  of  finding  water,  —  knowing, 
too,  how  untrustworthy  are  mere  stories  and  re 
ports,  we  determined  to  ascertain  for  ourselves 
whether  there  was  any  tangible  proof,  anything 
that  could  be  relied  on,  in  making  up  an  opinion. 
We  ascertained  names  and  places,  and  cross- 
examined  the  witnesses.  One  intelligent  farmer, 
who  had  spent  his  life  under  our  own  eyes,  that  is, 
not  more  than  six  miles  away,  told  us  how  he  had 

15  v 


338  SUMMER  REST. 

begun  to  dig  a  well,  and  after  two  fruitless  trials 
a  friend  came  by  and  said  to  him,  "I  would  not 
dig  at  random  in  this  way.  Go  to  Mr.  Onlis, 
and  let  him  tell  you  where  you  can  get  some 
thing  besides  your  labor  for  your  pains."  Where 
upon  he  proceeded  at  once  to  Mr.  Onlis,  who 
said,  "  I  do  not  wish  to  go.  I  have  just  had 
two  failures.  I  would  rather  not  go." 

"  Never  mind,"  said  the  believing  farmer,  "  but 
jump  right  into  the  wagon  and  go  with  me." 

So  they  went  together,  and  the  little  rod  pointed 
to  a  spring  just  nine  feet  under  ground,  which, 
when  they  had  dug  nine  feet,  they  found  bub 
bling  up  to  meet  them.  The  farmer  then  called 
upon  Mr.  Onlis  to  point  out  a  spring  for  a  well  for 
one  of  the  farm  laborers,  which  he  did  with  equal 
accuracy,  and  subsequently  another  for  the  barn. 
In  the  latter  case  a  very  slight  excavation  showed 
the  site  of  an  old  well  whose  existence  was  remem 
bered,  but  whose  location  had  been  forgotten.  A 
few  repairs  brought  it  out  as  good  as  new,  thanks 
to  the  little  Puck  of  a  wand. 

A  second  man  gave  in  his  experience  also  for 
our  edification.  He  dug  down  in  a  certain  spot, 
according  to  directions,  and  came  upon  a  ledge. 
The  laborers  blasted  till  they  were  tired,  and 
were  upon  the  point  of  giving  it  up ;  but,  as  they 
had  gone  nearly  to  the  depth  indicated,  they  de 
termined  to  make  a  complete  trial.  Their  perse 
verance  was  rewarded  by  their  finding  an  unfail 
ing  supply  of  water  in  the  solid  rock. 


WELL  DONE.  339 

A  third  testified  that  he  had  taken  Mr.  Onlis 
upon  a  solid  ledge  to  a  distance  of  about  ten  feet 
from  the  precipitous  front  of  the  cliff,  and  asked 
him  for  water.  He  found  it,  after  a  short  search, 
a  dozen  feet  perhaps  below  the  surface. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  there  is  a  spring 
of  water  in  this  ledge  of  rock  ?  " 

"I  think  there  is." 

He  then  took  him  around  to  the  front  of  the 
cliff,  where,  at  about  the  designated  spot,  a  little 
trickle  of  water  could  be  seen  oozing  from  the 
rock. 

"I  have  noticed  that  there  is  always  water 
weeping  there  through  drought  and  summer," 
said  the  gentleman,  "and  have  thought  whether 
it  mio;ht  not  be  made  available." 

O 

"  Undoubtedly  it  could,"  was  the  reply ;  a 
process  of  drilling  was  at  once  commenced,  and 
a  spring  of  water  found  there  which  has  never 
failed,  though  several  years  have  since  intervened. 

Another  witness  told  of  an  exhibition  of  the 
power  in  a  public  hall,  in  the  presence  and  under 
the  scrutinizing  gaze  of  a  hundred  people,  mem 
bers  of  a  scientific  association.  The  president  of 
the  association  was  an  avowed  disbeliever,  yet  the 
rod  turned  unerringly  when  brought  over  a  piece 
of  gold,  and  with  such  force  as  to  take  the  skin 
from  the  palm  of  his  hand. 

Another  man  had  dug  two  wells  only  a  rod  or 
two  apart,  and  to  the  depth  of  forty  feet,  but  found 


340  SUMMER  REST. 

the  water  so  insufficient  that  he  filled  them  both 
up.  Some  time  after  his  death  his  son  heard 
of  Mr.  Onlis,  and  engaged  his  services.  The  rod 
indicated  a  vein  about  midway  between  the  two 
old  wells.  On  digging  there,  an  abundant  supply 
of  water  was  found  at  somewhat  less  than  half  the 
depth  of  the  other  wells. 

In  the  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Patents 
for  the  Year  1851,  Part  II.,  is  a  statement  made 
by  Alfred  Burnson,  of  Prairie  du  Chien,  Wis 
consin,  over  his  own  signature.  He  says:  "In 
1812  I  settled  on  a  springless  farm  in  Ohio,  ex 
pecting  to  obtain  water  by  digging  a  well.  A  neigh 
bor  of  mine,  who  had  on  an  adjoining  farm  ob 
tained  good  water  only  fourteen  feet  from  the  sur 
face  of  the  ground,  by  means  of  this  Bletonism, 
urged  me  to  try  the  same  means.  But,  being  of  the 
class  who  could  not,  or  rather  would  not,  believe  in 
what  I  could  not  comprehend,  I  declined  resort 
ing  to  what  to  me,  as  to  others,  appeared  to  be 
consummate  nonsense,  and  I  spent  my  leisure  time 
in  the  dry  time  of  three  years  in  digging,  but  found 
no  water.  At  length,  despairing  of  finding  water 
in  this  way,  and  having  the  curiosity  to  test  this 
new  science,  I  invited  a  i  water  philosopher  '  to 
try  his  skill  for  me.  It  is  proper  to  observe,  that 
this  man  wras  an  independent  farmer,  a  man  of 
intelligence  and  high  moral  worth,  and,  as  he  per 
formed  in  this  matter  without  fee  or  reward,  I  had 
no  possible  ground  for  suspecting  any  design  of 


WELL  DONE.  341 

humbuggery  on  his  part.  And  further,  he  told 
me  that  he  knew  no  more  of  the  reason,  the  why 
or  wherefore  it  worked  in  his  hands,  while  it 
would  not  in  those  of  others,  than  I  did.  By 
mere  accident  he  ascertained  that  he  was  '  one  of 
'em '  ;  and  on  discovering  this  he  experimented 
until  he  discovered  the  fact  —  that  the  rod  would 
be  attracted  at  an  angle  of  45°,  and  that  from  the 
point  at  which  the  attraction  commenced  to  where 
the  attraction  was  perpendicular,  would  indicate 
the  depth  to  dig  to  reach  the  water. 

"All  this,  however,  —  his  high  character  and 
his  explanations,  —  did  not  remove  my  doubts. 
He  prepared  his  peach-twig  fork,  and  I  placed  him 
over  a  well  which  I  had  dug,  and  was  at  this  time 
full  of  surface  or  seep  water ;  wishing,  if  possible, 
not  to  lose  the  labor  thus  expended.  But  this 
seep-water  had  no  effect  whatever  on  the  rod. 
The  operator  then  travelled  slowly,  I  keeping  my 
eye  upon  the  rod  and  his  hands,  to  see  if  the  turn 
ing  of  the  rod  was  not  from  the  motion  of  his  own 
hands.  At  length  the  butt  or  fork-end  of  the  rod 
went  down ;  the  operator  holding  his  hands  upon 
the  rod  so  tightly,  to  prevent  its  slipping,  that  they 
turned  purple,  and  I  could  plainly  see  that  the 
twig  ends  of  the  rod  did  not  slip  or  turn  round  in 
his  hand,  but  that  the  twigs  actually  twisted  so  that 
the  bark  broke  and  gave  way.  When  I  saw  this  I 
gave  it  up.  What  I  saw  with  my  own  eyes,  and 
that,  too,  against  strong  prejudice,  I  could  not 


342  SUMMER  REST. 

doubt.  He  selected  the  point  where  the  dip  of 
the  rod  was  the  strongest,  and  measured  the  depth 
by  the  45°  rule,  and  I  stuck  the  stake  to  dig 
by;  and  in  the  ensuing  aulumn,  when  all  was 
dry,  I  dug,  and  found  the  depth,  quantity,  and 
quality  of  the  water  just  as  he  had  told  me." 

It  is  natural  and  to  be  expected  that  the  uncul 
tivated  mind  should  reject  or  neglect  evidence  at 
its  own  will,  and  satisfy  itself  with  calling  names ; 
but  it  is  difficult  to  perceive  how  the  intellect, 
trained  to  distinguish  between  truth  and  falsehood, 
between  reason  and  prejudice,  between  probability 
and  absurdity,  between  science  and  charlatanry, 
can  reject  without  evidence  or  after  evidence, 
statements  so  interesting  and  so  well  supported  as 
these.  The  philosophy  of  the  thing  is  a  question 
of  opinion  or  conjecture.  Its  existence  is  a  matter 
of  fact,  as  well  fortified  by  testimony  as  any  of 
the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Bible.  That  is  per 
haps  an  unhappy  remark,  as  those  who  seem  to 
think  themselves  the  divinely-appointed  sponsors 
of  the  sacred  teachings  will  at  once  be  up  in  arms 
to  defend  them  from  fancied  danger,  and  those 
who  reject  the  sacred  teachings  altogether  will 
think  it  a  weakening  rather  than  a  strengthening 
of  the  case.  For  the  latter,  it  is  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other ;  it  simply  leaves  the  thing  where  it 
was  before,  but  I  should  like  to  have  the  former 
adduce  any  evidence  in  support  of  Christ's  mira 
cles  different  in  nature  or  stronger  in  degree  than 


WELL  DONE.  343 

this.  This  does  not  either  tend  to  explain  away  the 
miracles  into  common  occurrences  or  to  cheapen 
them  by  a  new  dispensation  of  miracles.  Even 
though  ultimately  Christ's  miracles  should  be 
shown  to  be  the  using  of  simply  natural  forces, 
still  his  use  of  them  was  as  miraculous  as  if  he  had 
contravened  nature.  To  have  known  perfectly 
and  have  commanded  supremely  what  eighteen  or 
eighteen  hundred  centuries  would  but  obscurely 
discern  and  partially  control,  was  as  godlike  an 
attribute,  was  a  more  godlike  attribute,  than  to 
wrest  a  law  from  its  normal  working  and  force  it 
to  oppose  itself.  Our  modern  "  diviner,"  as  he  is 
most  improperly  called,  makes  no  such  pretensions. 
He  says  frankly,  "  I  do  not  know.  I  can  make 
no  promises."  He  arrives  at  what  knowledge  he 
possesses  only  as  a  private  in  the  great  army  of 
progress.  The  names  of  u magic,"  "witchcraft," 
"  divining,"  are  entirely  out  of  place  and  mischiev 
ous.  They  prejudice  the  common  mind  against 
what  promises  to  be  a  useful  discovery.  There  is 
no  assumption  of  mystery  or  anything  of  the  na 
ture  of  incantation.  And  the  educated  man  who 
countenances  any  such  belief  misuses  his  educa 
tion.  If  he  cannot  or  does  not  choose  to  investi 
gate  the  subject,  let  him  hold  his  peace. 

It  is  objected  that  though  a  man  may  designate 
a  spot  and  water  may  be  found  there,  yet  to  infer 
that  the  man  knew  anything  about  it  is  to  jump  to 
a  conclusion.  Very  true,  but  it  is  such  jumps  as 


SUMMER  REST. 

we  are  taking  every  day.  A  ruffian  strikes  you 
a  blow  with  a  club  and  you  fall  to  the  ground,  and 
judge  and  jury  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
fall  is  in  consequence  of  the  blow.  A  very  evil 
case  should  we  be  in  if  they  did  not.  A  certain 
regularity  in  the  succession  of  events  is  allowed 
by  the  most  enlightened  science  to  constitute 
cause  and  effect.  You  plunge  your  burnt  finger 
into  cold  water  and  the  pain  ceases ;  you  justly 
infer  that  the  water  effected  the  easement.  The 
only  question  is  as  to  the  character  and  the  num 
ber  of  the  cases  required  to  establish  the  relation 
ship  of  cause  and  effect.  If  the  hazel -rod  points 
to  water  only  on  land  where  springs  abound,  and 
wells  can  be  easily  filled,  or  if  only  now  and  then 
it  points  to  water,  its  claims  could  be  reasonably 
disputed;  for  in  the  one  case  it  could  only  by 
chance  fail,  and  in  the  other  it  might  by  chance 
succeed :  but  if  it  invariably  points  to  water,  and 
as  well  on  land  that  has  been  repeatedly  pierced 
in  vain  as  on  fresh  fields,  we  must  jump  to  the 
conclusion  that  there  is  an  understanding  between 
the  rod  and  the  water,  or  we  must  relinquish  all 
claims  to  reason  and  write  ourselves  down  as  mem 
bers  of  that  class  of  beings  which  mistake  stubborn 
ness  for  sense  ! 

It  is  said,  also,  that  if  these  persons  had  true  faith 
in  their  alleged  power  they  would  avail  themselves 
of  it  as  they  do  not  now.  They  would  go  into  the 
oil  districts  and  the  mining  districts  and  make  their 


WELL  DONE.  345 

fortunes.  I  suppose,  then,  men  always  do  what  it 
is  for  their  interest  to  do.  Industry,  honesty,  so 
briety,  tend  to  happiness  and  wealth ;  therefore  of 
any  particular  man  who  believes  this  it  may  be 
predicated  that  he  is  industrious,  honest,  and  sober. 
He  who  knows  that  the  wages  of  sin  is  death, 
scrupulously  keeps  himself  in  the  paths  of  right 
eousness.  On  the  contrary,  idleness,  trickery,  and 
drunkenness  abound  even  in  the  most  enlightened 
sections,  and  many  a  man  works  hard  with  open 
eyes  to  earn  his  wages  from  his  father,  the  Devil. 
It  is  not  safe  to  depend  on  what  men  would  nat 
urally  be  supposed  to  do.  But  apart  from  this, 
if  one  may  judge  from  the  incredulity  which  pre 
vails  in  his  own  neighborhood,  a  Bletonist  would 
have  little  encouragement  to  leave  his  certain  oc 
cupation,  his  quiet,  and  his  family,  to  encounter 
the  unbelief  and  ridicule  of  strangers,  and  the 
roughness  of  a  new  and  but  half-civilized  life.  His 
habits  do  not  sit  so  loosely  on  a  man  of  middle  age 
and  New  England  life  that  he  can  lightly  change 
them.  Moreover,  the  whole  matter  is  as  yet  too 
little  understood  and  valued  to  inspire  great  con 
fidence.  The  scale  of  measurements  is  far  from 
being  perfected,  and  though  the  depths  of  the 
water  is  but  a  collateral  matter,  entirely  distinct 
from  its  locality,  and  depending  more  on  a  man's 
judgment  and  skill,  and  therefore  of  minor  import 
as  affecting  the  physical  discovery,  yet  it  is  of 
great  importance  in  a  practical  point  of  view. 

15* 


346  SUMMER  REST. 

But  while  the  power  itself  is  so  little  compre 
hended  that  the  conditions  of  its  existence,  or  those 
upon  which  it  may  be  acquired,  retained,  or  con 
trolled,  are  absolutely  unknown,  no  man  of  con 
servative  years  or  character  can  be  expected  to 
stake  his  fortunes  on  it.  "  If  I  should  advertise,'* 
said  Mr.  Onlis,  "  and  set  up  an  office,  and  then 
should  fail,  it  would  be  a  serious  matter.  But  now 
if  people  want  me  they  must  run  their  own  risk." 
Electricity  is  the  most  probable  agent  that  has  yet 
been  advanced  to  account  for  the  phenomena.  A 
silk  handkerchief  on  the  ground  prevents  the  dip 
of  the  rod.  Indeed,  Mr.  Burnson  says  that  a  great 
variety  of  experiments  shows  that  all  the  phenom 
ena  of  the  rod  are  governed  by  the  laws  of  electri 
city.  When  men  of  science  have  completed  their 
investigations  of  the  subject,  have  discovered  its 
connections,  and  established  its  domains,  we  may 
hope  that  it  will  be  fruitful  of  benefit  in  ways  of 
which  as  yet  we  have  not  dreamed. 

Meanwhile  I  submit  that  to  believe  that  a  man 
accounted  honest,  and  certainly  respected,  comfort 
ably  placed,  and  dwelling  among  his  own  people, 
should  falsely  declare  or  vainly  believe  himself 
possessed  of  a  power,  the  proof  of  whose  existence 
is  within  any  man's  reach,  and  should  be  upheld  in 
this  declaration  and  confirmed  in  this  belief  by  men 
of  judgment,  intellect,  and  high  moral  worth  who 
had  tested  his  power  and  declared  themselves  sat 
isfied  of  its  existence  to  the  full  intent  and  extent 


WELL  DONE.  347 

of  his  declaration,  —  to  believe  this,  I  say,  requires, 
in  my  judgment,  a  credulity  as  far  removed  from 
intelligent  caution  on  the  one  side  as  it  is  from  an 
intelligent  boldness  on  the  other. 

O 

While  we  have  thus  been  turning  the  defeat  of 
our  foes  into  a  shameful  rout,  the  well  has  been 
swallowing  stone  wall  by  the  cart-load,  and  now 
the  kobolds  near  the  surface  ;  they  are  tunnelling 
through  into  the  cellar,  prying  out  its  big  rocks 
and  powdering  its  hardened  cement,  and  I  think 
of  Colonel  Streight  and  the  Andersonville  moles, 
and  wonder  if  the  Chicago  tunnel  under  the  lake 
is  a  work  of  perceptibly  greater  magnitude  than 
these  water-works  of  ours ;  for  faith  fails  me  to 
see  how  they  are  ever  going  to  bring  order  out 
of  this  chaos  or  get  that  hole  in  the  wall  filled 
up,  and  even  while  I  muse,  forlorn,  a  hollow  log 
is  shot  into  the  hole,  and  anon  all  the  wreck 
clears  itself  away  and  the  cellar  is  in  apple-pie 
order  once  more,  and  the  well  takes  another  gulp 
of  stone  wall,  till  at  length  its  rapacious  maw  is 
lined  to  the  lips  with  rock.  How  finely  they  are 
fitted  in,  these  jagged  fragments !  How  round 
and  regular  the  rough  work  looks  !  How  beauti 
ful  it  is  to  know  how  to  do  things  well,  and  to  do 
them  well,  and  to  take  pride  in  doing  them  well. 
Why  do  not  mechanics  and  all  workmen  set  them 
selves  to  be  skilled  \vorkmen,  and  not  rich  men? 
How  much  better  is  sincere  work,  than  a  little 
money,  or  a  great  deal  of  money,  gained  by  sleight 


348  SUMMER   REST. 

of  hand.  And  now,  pugnis  et  calcibus,  to  speak 
after  the  manner  of  Webster's  spelling-book,  down 
goes  a  boy  into  the  well,  to  clear  it  of  all  rubbish, 
—  very  speedily  and  bravely  it  seems  to  me, 
watching  him  with  beating  heart,  but  the  old  man, 
following  him  with  his  eyes,  frets  at  his  slowness 
and  caution,  and  but  for  a  wholesome  fear  of  his 
"folks,"  would,  I  am  persuaded,  cast  aside  his 
seventy  years,  and  go  down  into  Tartarus  him 
self, —  and  then  all  is  pronounced  complete,  the 
well  is  covered  up,  the  ropes  and  picks  and  shovels 
and  buckets  are  piled  into  the  cart,  the  old  man  sits 
down  on  a  board,  and  with  his  own  unaided  eyes 
and  hands  makes  out  his  bill  as  properly  as  any 
clerk.  Then  westward  ho !  a  dozen  miles  we  go 
to  prowl  among  pipes  and  pumps,  and  come  home 
laden  therewith,  —  pipes  not  of  lead,  for  they 
poison  you,  not  gutta-percha,  for  they  crack,  but 
galvanized  iron,  possessed  of  every  virtue  under 
heaven.  And  already  imagination  fondly  stoops 
to  trace  the  pictured  splendors  of  water  in  the 
house,  when  of  a  sudden  we  are  brought  to  a 
stand-still.  The  hollow  log  through  which  the 
pipe  must  pass  is  not  placed  on  a  level,  but  slopes 
upwards,  and  the  pipe-joints  screw  only  at  right 
angles.  So  another  three  days  delay,  and  another 
dozen  miles  journey  to  get  the  joints  retwisted, 
while  we  feed  our  faith  by  calling  up  the  mani 
fold  difficulties  that  beset  the  great  Atlantic  Cable, 
and  a  miserable  man,  feeling  feebly  around  for 


WELL  DONE.  349 

bugbears,  as  if  they  do  not  come  full  swiftly 
enough  of  their  own  accord,  asks  querulously, 
"  Suppose  when  the  pump  is  set  up  it  won't 
pump  ?  Why  should  it,  if  this  well  is  as  deep  as 
the  old  one  ?  "  and  for  all  answer  gets  the  idio- 

o 

matic,  highly  figurative  but  emphatic  response, 
"  Hold  your  tongue  !  It  will  pump  !  "  But 
.clandestinely  I  consult  the  philosophies,  which 
say  comfortably  that  pumps  will  pump  at  from 
thirty-two  to  thirty-four  feet,  and  this  water  is 
only  twenty-eight  feet  underground,  and  of  course 
it  will  pump.  Here  come  the  pipes  again,  up 
through  the  floor,  down  through  the  log,  plump 
into  the  well,  and  every  screw  is  screwed  tight, 
and  every  crack  stopped  with  pretty  pink  liquid 
lead,  and  the  carpenter  comes  and  builds  a  box 
for  protection,  and  rounds  the  top  into  elegant 
curves,  and  fastens  the  pump  firm  upon  it,  and  we 
are  ready  for  the  inauguration. 

I  make  the  first  trial,  —  by  favor,  —  expecting 
a  great  parabola  of  water,  with  a  single  touch. 
There  is  a  silent  expectancy  in  the  bystanders. 
I  lift  the  pump-handle  once,  twice,  thrice  by 
main  force  and  bear  it  down ;  then  ignominiously 
give  way  for  the  carpenter's  strong  arms.  Up 
and  down,  up  and  down,  swiftly  at  first,  more 
slowly  at  last,  he  plies  a  melancholy  see-saw. 
There  is  no  response.  One  and  another  change 
guard.  Water,  water,  everywhere,  but  not  a  drop 
from  our  pump.  Round  we  throw  our  baleful  eyes, 


350  SUMMER  REST. 

that  witness  huge  affliction  and  dismay,  mixed  with 
obdurate  pride.  "  Let 's  wet  his  whistle  for  him," 
says  some  one,  and  pours  a  pitcherful  of  water 
down  the  iron  throat.  See-saw  again,  for  an  in 
definite  period,  till  the  sun  comes  out  in  a  little 
faint  stream,  straggling  from  the  pump-nose,  evi 
dently  having  lost  its  way,  —  not  a  parabola,  bold, 
full,  and  furious,  but  a  little  split  vein  that  falls 
flat  into  the  sink,  exhausted.  Still  we  hail  it 
as  the  harbinger  of  better  days.  "  That 's  it, 
that 's  all  the  trouble,"  says  the  carpenter.  "  The 
leather  is  dry,  and  the  pump  leaks ;  keep  using  it 
from  day  to  day,  and  keep  the  leather  wet  till  it 
swells,  and  it  will  work.  There  's  most  always 
trouble  with  new  pumps,"  with  which  solace  the 
foreign  population  withdraw,  leaving  us  to  our 
fate. 

So  we  treated  the  pump  hydropathically,  giving 
it  a  great  deal  more  water  than  it  ever  gave  us, 
pouring  it  down  plenteously  and  pumping  it  up 
painfully ;  and  every  time  we  stopped  pumping, 
we  could  hear  the  water  scudding  back  into  the 
well,  but  never,  no  never  could  we  hear  it  scud 
ding  up.  We  were  indeed  a  little  worse  off  than 
before ;  since  formerly  we  had  been  obliged  to 
bring  water  only  for  our  own  use,  while  now  we 
had  to  quench  the  thirst  of  this  parched  pump, 
It  was  robbing  Peter  to  pay  Paul  at  a  fearful 
outlay  to  the  robber.  "  We  shall  have  to  buy  a 
horse  and  build  a  treadmill  if  this  is  going  to 


WELL  DONE.  351 

last  long,"  said  a  person  who  is  not  fond  of  man 
ual  labor ;  but  it  did  not  last  long.  One  fine 
morning  all  pitcher  persuasions  proved  useless. 
The  poor  pump  wheezed  and  groaned  and  squeaked 
and  moaned.  I  heard  the  noise,  but  could  not 
decide  what  it  was,  and  called  out  from  the  head 
of  the  kitchen  stairs,  "  How  does  the  pump  work 
this  morning  ?  " 

"  Works  like  a  Trojan,"  and  so  indeed  it  did, 
but  in  vain.  Halicarnassus  said  he  would  examine 
the  pipes.  He  went  down  cellar  with  a  candle, 
and  then  down  the  well,  and  was  gone  so  long 
that  I  forgot  all  about  him.  Presently  he  came 
in  and  threw  himself  on  the  lounge.  Then  I 
recollected,  and  asked  eagerly,  "  What  have  you 
done  with  the  well  ?  " 

"  O,  I  left  it  there,  —  out  doors,"  he  replied, 
indifferently,  as  if  I  had  supposed  he  might  have 
put  it  in  his  pocket,  —  but  no  water  followed  his 
explorations. 

In  the  midst  of  our  perplexities  came  a  new 
and  startling  development.  The  mountain  of 
earth  that  had  been  dug  out  of  the  well  was  to 
be  sold  to  the  town  surveyor  at  six  cents  a  load, 
for  mending  the  highways,  —  which  seemed  to  me 
so  good  a  bargain,  that  I  advised  Halicarnassus 
to  have  the  whole  farm  dug  up  and  carted  off  at 
that  price,  as  the  most  profitable  mode  of  farming 
we  could  adopt.  There  was  delay,  of  course,  in 
removing  the  pile,  and  presently  the  frosts  fast- 


352  SUMMER  REST. 

ened  their  fangs  in  it,  and  it  became  a  fixture  till 
spring.  After  a  while,  a  man  who  was  examining 
the  well  in  pursuit  of  knowledge,  ascertained  that 
it  was  filling  up.  The  rains  had  slyly  washed  the 
soil  back  again.  It  was  already  five  feet  deep  in 
the  bottom  of  the  well,  and  at  this  rate  it  would 
not  be  long  before  we  should  have  to  dig  it  all 
over  again.  How  the  little  underground  imps 
must  have  clapped  their  hands  in  malicious  de 
light,  at  the  practical  joke  they  were  playing  on 
us !  But  worse  still,  the  rains  in  one  spot  had 
washed  away  the  background  from  the  rocks, 
and  left  a  hole  which  every  rain  enlarged.  An 
other  rain-storm  might  be  fatal.  In  short,  the  well 
threatened  to  cave  in.  It  might  as  well  have 
been  in  as  out  for  all  the  good  it  did,  besides  it  was 
absurd  to  think  of  mending  a  well  before  it  was 
fairly  made ;  nevertheless,  for  the  name  of  it,  we 
concluded  to  heal  the  breach.  Speedy  measures 
were  urgently  enjoined.  It  was  Saturday  night, 
and  a  rain-storm  imminent.  I  suggested  stuffing 
the  hole  with  cotton  wool  and  rags  over  Sunday, 
and  was  looked  at  for  my  pains.  Perhaps  the 
plan  was  hardly  feasible,  as  the  hole,  on  examina 
tion,  turned  out  to  be  large  enough  for  a  man  to 
hide  in.  No,  we  must  go  at  once,  and  bring 
laborers  to  fill  in  stones  and  pack  clay,  —  even  to 
work  on  Sunday,  rather  than  encounter  another 
rain.  There  are  two  livery  stables  in. town  own 
ing  a  horse  apiece ;  messengers  were  despatched 


WELL  DONE.  353 

to  both  to  make  sure  of  a  conveyance,  but  though 
the  clouds  lowered,  and  the  drops  pattered,  no 
man's  conscience  was  tampered  with  by  any  in 
ducement  to  work  on  Sunday.  It  turned  out  just 
as  well,  for  the  clouds  thought  better  of  it,  and 
after  giving  us  a  sad  fright  and  a  few  "love  pats," 
floated  away  and  left  us  a  bright  Sunday  and 
Monday ;  and  the  well,  after  a  little  wise  correc 
tion,  relinquished  its  purpose  of  caving  in,  and 
surrendered  at  discretion. 

So  here  we  are.  If  it  were  a  mere  matter  of 
human  mechanics,  something  might  be  done ;  but 
how  contend  with  the  great  wild  atmosphere  fifty 
miles  above  our  heads,  and  the  solid  earth  be 
neath?  The  stars  in  their  courses  fought,  against 
Sisera ;  and  Sisera  was  conquered. 

"  Who  shall  contend  with  his  lords 

Or  cross  them  or  do  them  wrong  ? 
Who  shall  bind  them  as  with  cords  ? 

Who  shall  tame  them  as  with  song  1 
Who  shall  smite  them  as  with  swords  1 
For  the  hands  of  their  kingdom  are  strong." 

In  calmer  moments,  in  some  soft  twilight  hour, 
we  conjecture  that  possibly  onr  little  lodge  chances 
to  be  perched  on  a  water-shed,  and  that  is  the 
reason  all  the  streams  run  away  from  us.  We 
recount  the  history  of  the  old  world,  the  irrigation 
of  the  East,  the  wondrous  masonry  of  the  Roman 
aqueduct,  and  resolve  that  the  remains  are  no  re 
mains,  but  mark  the  spot  where  the  builders  gave 
up  their  work  in  despair,  and  we  know  how  to 


354  SUMMER  REST. 

sympathize  with  them.  I  read  to  my  friend  one 
morning  the  vainglorious  boast  of  the  Cincinnati 
people  over  their  monster  pump,  which  they  declare 
to  be  the  largest  pump  in  the  world,  for  it  draws  a 
stream  five  feet  in  diameter  from  the  river. 

"  We  can  match  it,"  he  responded ;  "  we  have 
got  the  smallest  pump  in  the  world,  for  it  draws 
just  no  stream  at  all !  " 

We  are  gradually  recovering  from  the  stupor  of 
exhaustion  consequent  -upon  our  prolonged  and  in 
cessant  efforts.  When  we  have  nothing  else  to 
do,  we  take  a  turn  at  the  pump,  rather,  however, 
from  force  of  habit  than  hope.  There  have  been 
even  faint  attempts  at  wit.  Halicarnassus  be 
guiles  the  tedium  of  pumping  by  calling  it  prac 
tical  high-draw-lics.  I  suggested  mechanical  aid 
one  morning,  a  steam-pump  or  a  force-pump.  But 
no,  said  he,  we  will  let  well  enough  alone.  Once 
he  aroused  himself  from  a  long  and  brown  study 
sufficiently  to  remark,  in  a  dreamy  sing-song, 
"  They  say,  c  all 's  well  that  ends  well.'  Would  n't 
all  be  better  if  it  begun  well  and  ended  water  ?  " 
Or  perhaps  he  exclaims,  his  eyes  heavy  with  un 
shed  tears,  "  We  love  not  wisely  but  two  wells." 
I  smile,  not  having  the  heart  to  refuse  him  such 
cold  comfort  as  may  be  found  in  bad  puns,  and 
just  as  we  are  beginning  to  be  a  little  reconciled 
and  settle  down  into  our  former  ways,  Mr.  Ole- 
fogee  is  sure  to  call  and  say,  "  Better  have  a  witch 
come  and  see  what 's  the  matter  in  the  pump,"  and 
the  old  wounds  bleed  afresh. 


WELL  DONE.  355 

There  is  one  comfort,  however,  in  the  general 
wreck.  The  pump  and  the  log  and  the  well  are 
of  small  use,  it  must  be  admitted ;  but  the  top  of 
the  pump-box  makes  a  very  handy  shelf. 

"  Yes,"  says  Halicarnassus,  "  but  rather  expen 
sive.  Tell  me  now,  you  who  are  accustomed  to 
fine  distinctions,  on  the  principle  that  '  't  were 
well  done  if  't  were  done  quickly,'  shall  we  con 
sider  our  well  done,  or  is  it  ourselves  that  are 
done?" 

I  have  never  disquieted  myself  to  answer  that 
question,  nor  shall  I  carry  this  record  further.  If 
subsequently  Genius  came  to  the  rescue,  and  gave 
us  a  happy  deliverance  from  all  our  troubles,  why 
recount  the  tale  ?  It  is  not  victory,  but  struggle, 
that  makes  the  happiness  of  noble  hearts.  And 
not  the  victory,  but  the  struggle,  shall  have  a 
history. 

Friendly  reader,  if  by  this  time  any  such  is  left 
me,  have  I  with  a  winning  word  or  two  at  the  out 
set  of  my  book,  lured  you  into  rough  and  unexT 
pected  paths  ?  Mea  culpa  !  Do  you  remember  the 
story  of  the  Queen,  who  had  once  been  a  cat,  — 
how,  sitting  in  state,  she  forgot  herself,  and  popped 
under  the  table  in  pursuit  of  a  mouse,  to  the  con 
sternation  of  her  lords  and  ladies?  De  mefdbula! 
Learn  hence,  my  dear  young  reader,  to  be  on 
your  guard  against  the  first  symptoms  of  polemics, 
lest  your  whole  life  become  saturated  with  it,  and 


35  G 


WELL   DONE. 


when  you  would  fain  utter  only  the  pearls  and 
diamonds  of  peace,  frogs  and  toads  of  controversy 
leap  forth  unawares ;  lest  even  the  melody  of  birds 
have  a  twang  of  Sternhold  and  Hopkins,  and  in 
the  midst  of  bloom  and  beauty  that  which  should 


"  Turn  out  a  song, 
Perchance  turn  out  a  sermon." 


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